Rondi Gelbard, M.D., a professor in the UAB Division of Trauma & Acute Care Surgery, has received the 2025 Alliance Committed Leader Award from the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance (The Alliance). The award was presented during the latest National Critical Issues Forum in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Rondi Gelbard (second from the left) with fellow Alliance awardees.The Alliance Committed Leader Award recognizes a leader who commits significant time and expertise to Alliance initiatives and taken on significant efforts to advance nationwide collaboration and engaged learning within the organ donation and transplantation community.
The award announcement from the Alliance stated that “colleagues praise Dr. Gelbard’s collaborative spirit, noting her ability to connect bedside teams and organ procurement organization partners, and her consistent willingness to volunteer her time and expertise to advance the community of practice.”
“I'm deeply honored by this recognition,” Gelbard said. "This award reinforces how important it is that we continue to share knowledge and best practices for improving outcomes and decreasing variation in donor management practices nationwide.”
Gelbard, who also serves as the medical director for Surgical Critical Care and the chief of Critical Care Services for the Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at UAB, has contributed to multiple Alliance initiatives, including serving as core faculty for the Foundational Perspectives of Organ Donation Program since 2021, where she has presented key educational material to more than 1,500 health care learners. The Alliance also noted her role as Chair of the National Donation Leadership Council (from 2025-2026), and her contributions to the development of the Alliance’s Donation after Circulatory Death Educational Resource Guide & Workshop.
Dr. Rondi Gelbard.
“It is amazing to watch Rondi’s commitment to her patients, the compassion she shows her patients and their families, and her dedication to organ donation as a whole,” said Samuel Windham, M.D., a professor in the Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery and the medical director of Alabama’s organ procurement organization, Legacy of Hope.
Gelbard's involvement with organ donation began early in her career. As an attending at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, she identified opportunities to improve the evaluation process for organ donation. She formed a multidisciplinary committee and led the effort to implement a single clinical brain death exam policy to determine donor eligibility. These changes, along with improvements in referrals and donor management, resulted in increased donation rates at the institution. That work led her to the Advisory Council of Lifelink of Georgia and then to the Alliance's National Donation Leadership Council.
Gelbard completed her medical training at UMDNJ–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and her general surgery residency at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, followed by fellowships in surgical critical care at the University of Miami/Ryder Trauma Center and in trauma at the LAC + USC Medical Center in Los Angeles. Before joining UAB in 2019, Gelbard spent six years as a trauma and acute care surgeon in the Emory Division of Surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital, where she also served as Grady Surgical ICU medical director and associate program director for the Emory Surgical Critical Care Fellowship.
About the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance
The Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance is an independent nonprofit that develops learning solutions for organ procurement organizations, transplant programs and hospitals where donation occurs. The Alliance describes itself as an objective convener that is led by an 18-member board of directors and three national leadership councils focused on donation, transplantation, and innovation.