For the 13th straight year, the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation has been named one of the state’s top places to work.
The 2025 Top Workplaces rankings resulted from an anonymous employee survey on factors such as job satisfaction, management quality, pay and benefits, and opportunities for growth.
Each year since the surveys began in 2013, OMRF has ranked among the state’s top 10 large employers (350-plus employees). The nonprofit biomedical foundation has ranked in the top five for nine of the past 10 straight years.
The Oklahoman newspaper announced this year’s winners at a Dec. 10 event in Oklahoma City, based on results compiled by Energage, a Philadelphia-based research and consulting firm. Earlier this year, the same firm recognized OMRF as one of the nation’s top 10 workplaces of its size.
In survey responses, employees overwhelmingly responded that they feel empowered, respected, supported and able to grow in their role. Their collective opinion provides a sense of validation to Courtney Stevens Greenwood, OMRF’s vice president of human resources.
“We strive to create a workplace where everyone feels both valued and connected to our mission,” she said. “These survey results tell us we’re succeeding, but we never stop trying to improve.”
Lisa Nelms started working at OMRF in 1976 as a high school senior and has remained for nearly 50 years. Now the foundation’s accounting director, she credits her coworkers and the opportunities she’s been given as primary reasons for her longevity.
“I spend more time with my OMRF family than my actual blood family,” Nelms said. “We are very close, and I consider myself so lucky.”
Research technician Makayla Tillett, who recently earned an undergraduate degree from Oklahoma City University, hopes to follow in the footsteps of OMRF’s executive vice president and chief medical officer, Judith James, M.D., Ph.D.
Both served summer internships as Fleming Scholars at OMRF, and Tillett has applied for the University of Oklahoma’s M.D.-Ph.D. program, which James was the first student to complete.
Tillett is now a full-time employee in the lab of her Fleming program mentors, scientists Umesh Deshmukh, Ph.D., and Harini Bagavant, Ph.D., and she says the limitless learning opportunities keep her job interesting.
“I love so many things about OMRF, but foremost are my mentors, who are incredible teachers dedicated to training the next generation of scientists like myself.”
