RED Talks

Mady Greene received a BA in women and gender studies from Georgetown University, and a BSN and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She recently completed post-doctoral studies at UW–School of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Greene’s research examines the mechanisms that cause and perpetuate disparities in sexual and reproductive health, with a focus on healthcare providers and health systems. She uses multiple methods to study disparities in sexual and reproductive health, and the particular role that healthcare systems and providers play in addressing or perpetuating these disparities. Influenced by clinical experience as a registered nurse in obstetrics and gynecology, the broad aims of Dr. Greene’s research are to improve access to crucial reproductive healthcare for marginalized groups, and mitigate adverse outcomes of inequities and disparities in healthcare delivery.

Dr. Kwekkeboom studies complementary therapies for pain and symptom management in persons with cancer and other chronic illness. Her research focuses on understanding symptom clusters, developing and testing interventions to improve symptom control, and identifying individual difference variables that explain which patients benefit from specific treatments. Dr. Kwekkeboom mentors students developing science in the areas of coping with cancer and treatment, cancer symptom management, quality of life, and self-management of pain in various health conditions. Her current service includes the UW–Madison Social Sciences Divisional Committee (vice-chair), and she is a standing member of the National Institute for Nursing Research Initial Scientific Review Group. Dr. Kwekkeboom is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Andrew O’Donnell is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing and the Co-Manager of the Critical Care Nurse Communicator Program at UW Health. Andrew completed his BSN with honors in May 2011 at UW–Madison. Prior to his current role, Andrew worked for six years as a nurse in the Trauma and Life Support Center, a medical/surgical intensive care unit (ICU) at UW Health. As a bedside nurse, Andrew contributed to several quality improvement initiatives including nurse-initiated rounding, stress management seminars, and rapid cycle change implementation through utilization of the champion model to educate ICU staff. As Co-Manager of the Critical Care Nurse Communicator Program, Andrew co-led the design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel approach to integrating palliative into the ICU. His professional passions lie in creating innovative models of care to better support patients and families facing serious chronic illness through better integration of primary and specialty palliative care.

Zhiyuan “Effy” Yu is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing. Effy is an Early Entry PhD Option (EEO) student and completed her BSN with honors in May 2015 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Effy is a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International, Midwest Nursing Research Society, and the Transcultural Nursing Society. She has served on Equity and Diversity Committee and the Journal Club Steering Committee within the School of Nursing. Effy has been published in the International Journal of Nursing Practice. Her program of research focuses on promoting health of vulnerable immigrant groups. Her current research investigates postpartum depression among immigrant mothers, using grounded theory. In addition to finishing her dissertation study, she is also pursuing certificates in Clinical and Community Outcomes Research as well as Nurse Educator.

Megan Zuelsdorff received her BS and MS in Population Health Sciences and PhD in Epidemiology at the UW–Madison. Her research focuses on social-biological pathways that underlie cognitive and functional health disparities in later life. Dr. Zuelsdorff is social epidemiologist and health disparities researcher, exploring social-biological pathways that underlie cognitive and functional health disparities in later life. Her current research program focuses on clarifying stress-related physiological mechanisms that link life course social disadvantages to brain aging and cognitive and functional decline in later life. Dr. Zuelsdorff’s long-term goal is to advance the understanding of socially-determined risk and resilience factors, and to develop population-specific interventions capable of disrupting, slowing, or reversing adverse trajectories of impairment. She will soon disseminate findings from a currently-funded Stress and Resilience in Dementia (STRIDE) study, on which she is Principal Investigator, and she will compete for a large grant to expand STRIDE into a longitudinal cohort study positioned to clarify pathways by which social context creates and mitigates cognitive health disparities over time.

The Wisconsin Network for Research Support is an innovative and nationally-recognized patient and community engagement resource, based at the UW–Madison School of Nursing. Since 2010, WINRS has offered a suite of consultation services to address a persistent problem for researchers—how to effectively engage study participants, especially people from under-represented communities. WINRS services are relevant across all phases of research and are valuable for any researchers who want to connect with people as research participants or study stakeholders.