Some careers turn on a single move. Others build one role and one question at a time, until the next step arrives. Alexandra “Alex” Greenawalt’s career is the second kind. On October 13, 2026, the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) announced that she had joined the organization as Director of Patient Advocacy. Greenawalt graduated from the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program at Crestmont University. Her appointment offers a clear view of what DBA outcomes can look like in practice.
This post follows the path leading up to the announcement. It covers the work she did before COA, the education that ran alongside it, and what her story suggests for professionals weighing a doctorate of their own.
A new role at the community oncology alliance
COA is a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit focused on community oncology. That term refers to the independent practices where, according to COA, most Americans with cancer receive treatment. The organization’s work spans policy, advocacy, and support for those practices.
As Director of Patient Advocacy, Greenawalt leads the COA Patient Advocacy Network (CPAN). The network gives patients, survivors, and caregivers the tools and opportunities to advocate for access to high-quality, affordable cancer care. COA’s announcement describes three parts of her work:
- Working with CPAN advocates and COA members to elevate the experiences of patients and caregivers
- Strengthening grassroots engagement
- Helping patient perspectives inform public policy discussions that affect community cancer care
Nicolas Ferreyros, managing director of COA, said in the announcement that effective patient advocacy begins with listening to patients. It also depends on strong connections among the people and organizations that support them. He named her experience in community health, nonprofit leadership, and independent oncology as the foundation for expanding CPAN’s reach.
Greenawalt described the role through the people she now represents. “Patients and caregivers bring essential knowledge to every conversation about cancer care,” she said. She added that she looks forward to working with CPAN advocates to share their experiences and protect access to care where patients live.
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Listening first: The work behind the appointment
The appointment rests on years of work close to patients and the organizations that serve them.
Before joining COA, Greenawalt served as Executive Director of Pathways Community Center, a nonprofit hub of 20 health and human service providers. Twenty organizations don’t become a network on their own. She strengthened partnerships and communication among them so they could operate as a coordinated care network. The goal was systems-level solutions for the patient journey and for community health overall.
She also consulted for an independent oncology practice. There, she researched sustainable funding for financial navigation services, which help patients manage the financial side of cancer treatment. The project gave her direct insight into the financial and operational barriers that can stand between a patient and care.
The two roles share a thread. In both, the hardest questions weren’t clinical. They were organizational: how services connect, how programs are funded, and how a patient moves through a system built by many hands. That thread leads to her new role, where the task is to carry patient experience into the rooms where policy takes shape.
From public health to a doctorate
Greenawalt’s education follows the same thread as her career:
- Bachelor of Science in Public Health, College of Charleston
- Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Healthcare Management, Western Governors University
- Doctor of Business Administration in Healthcare Management and Leadership, Crestmont University
Each degree took up a question the previous one opened. Public health explains what keeps communities healthy. Healthcare management explains how the organizations that serve them run. A doctor in business administration adds the discipline to study system-level problems with evidence and to defend a solution.
The sequence wasn’t a detour from her work. It ran alongside it, and each stage drew on what the job in front of her was teaching.
What a DBA adds to work like hers
A DBA is a terminal degree in business built around applied research. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) typically aims to develop new theory. A DBA asks how to solve a specific problem inside real organizations. Students often bring that problem into their own careers.
Look at the challenges in COA’s announcement through that lens. Coordinating 20 providers into a single care network is a matter of organizational design. Funding financial navigation is a question of business models. Bringing patient voices into policy discussions requires evidence that resonates with legislators, practices, and payers.
Each one calls for the same habits. You define the problem and review what is already known. You gather and analyze data. Then you make a case that others can test. Doctoral research is designed to build exactly those habits.
A degree alone doesn’t create a career move. Greenawalt’s appointment reflects her own years of work across community health, nonprofit leadership, and oncology. A doctorate is designed to deepen that kind of experience, not to stand in for it. At Crestmont University, DBA students choose between a traditional dissertation and an applied Doctoral Research Project, so the research can start from a problem they already know.
What can you do with a DBA? Lessons from one path
Many professionals considering a DBA ask a quieter version of this question: Is a doctorate too far from the work I do now? Greenawalt’s path offers a practical answer. She didn’t move in a straight line from one title to the next. She built a career across sectors and added education that fit the work in front of her.
Three patterns from her path apply well beyond oncology.
Start with a problem you already know. Her research on financial navigation funding came from a gap she saw in patient care. Applied doctoral research begins in the same place. That way, the research strengthens your current role instead of pulling you away from it.
Let each credential answer a real question. Her degrees form a single sequence, each shaped by what the previous role revealed. If your work keeps raising questions your training can’t answer, that is often the moment to consider a doctorate.
Credibility matters in rooms you don’t control. Advocacy and policy work depend on trust from people who don’t know you yet. Research-based recommendations carry weight with boards, funders, and legislators in a way conviction alone often doesn’t.
None of these patterns requires a specific age, sector, or title. They require experience worth studying and the patience to study it carefully.
A healthcare-focused DBA can support work in settings like these:
- Nonprofit and community health leadership
- Patient advocacy and health policy
- Practice and health system management
- Healthcare consulting
- Postsecondary teaching and research
For a wider look at career paths across DBA specializations, see What can you do with a DBA? Salary Data and Career Paths.
Looking ahead
Greenawalt’s new work begins where her career has always pointed: with patients and the people who care for them. Her path shows how community work, a business education, and doctoral research can come together in one role with national reach.
If you’re weighing a doctorate, her story suggests a good first question. What problem in your own work would you most like to understand? To see how Crestmont University’s DBA approaches applied research, visit the Doctor of Business Administration.
