James L. Miles, Sr., PhD., DMin., HMCT, AHTC
Senior Strategist; Resilience, Community Economic Development, Population Health, and Organizational Performance
Dr. Miles’ primary passion is to help leaders and communities build resilience while fulfilling their vision for positive and sustainable transformations that drive social, cultural, and economic development for all.
Professionally, Dr. Miles has held positions from systems analyst and program manager to Chief Operating Officer and enterprise management consultant. His professional experience includes being a certified Economic Development & Finance Professional, leading the design and launch of regional multi-stakeholder consortiums, personnel responsibilities for over 150 employees and budget responsibilities in excess of $10million. Dr. Miles started his adult work experience as a United States Marine, which included serving the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Military Command Center, Pentagon. Dr. Miles has successfully led business performance management and corporate supplier development programs; non-profit and church based regional collaboratives; community engagement, outreach, and intervention projects; community economic development and culture change agendas; triple-bottom-line business sustainability initiatives; municipal healthcare system design projects; public policy programs; and population health initiatives.
Academically, Dr. Miles has two earned doctorates. A PhD in Public Policy with research focused on short cycle culture change and healthcare reform systems and a Doctor of Ministry focused on ways to finance and implement community economic development through faith-based organizations. He served as a project lead for a university wide quarters-to-semesters curriculum conversion project at Rush University, served as an Assistant Professor at National Louis University in the Applied Behavioral Sciences program, and was awarded the university wide, 2014 Willis E. Snowbarger award for teaching excellence at Olivet Nazarene University. He conducts community-based participatory research focused on resilience, wellness, community development, population health, and emerging narratives shaping our understanding of Diaspora Citizenship.
Currently Dr. Miles serves as a Senior Partner for the Resilient Communities Initiative, senior community development, engagement, and program evaluation strategist for the Multi-Faith Veterans Initiative out of the Egan office at DePaul University. He additionally provides management consulting and communications support for the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium, an association of 17 local public health departments representing over 8 million Illinois residents. Dr. Miles is a member of the Illinois’ State Health Improvement Plan Team, a Board member of the Social Entrepreneurship Alliance – Chicago, and the Institute for Cultural Affairs.
Dr. Miles is an ordained American Baptist minister, certified Reiki Master, and HeartMath Master Trainer. This training and experience supports his applied research interest in resilience, moral injury, community wellbeing, and mind, body, and soul wellness practices. All these modalities and practices support sustaining positive advancements in personal and community development.