
Research, Education & Discovery
The UW–Madison School of Nursing RED Talks showcase the School in action. RED Talks provide an opportunity for our faculty, staff, and students to share current initiatives aimed at improving health through research, education, and practice.
RED Talks
2019
- Mady Greene, PhD, RN
- Kristine Kwekkeboom, PhD, RN, FAAN
- Kitty Montgomery, PhD, RN, PCNS-BC, CPHON
- Andrew O’Donnell, BSN, RN
- Zhiyuan “Effy” Yu, PhD, RN
- Megan Zuelsdorff, PhD
- Wisconsin Network for Research Support (WNRS)
2018
- Lisa C. Bratzke, PhD, RN, ANP-BC, FAHA
- Anne Ersig, PhD, RN
- Theresa Watts, RN, MPH, CPH
2019
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Mady Greene, PhD, RN
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.
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Kristine Kwekkeboom, PhD, RN, FAAN
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.
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Andrew O'Donnell, BSN, RN
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.
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Zhiyuan "Effy" Yu, PhD, RN
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.
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Megan Zuelsdorff, PhD
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.
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Wisconsin Network for Research Support
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.
2018
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Lisa C. Bratzke, PhD, RN, ANP-BC, FAHA
Dr. Bratzke studies accelerated cognitive aging. She is interested in identifying risks for accelerated cognitive aging in older adults with heart disease and multiple chronic conditions. Dr. Bratzke is also interested in examining the effects of accelerated cognitive decline on functional status and self-management, two important factors related to an older adult’s ability to live independently. Dr. Bratzke’s long-term research goals include identification of interventions to slow the cognitive aging process and improve functional status and self-management skills among older adults with multiple chronic conditions.
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Anne Ersig, PhD, RN
Dr. Ersig focuses on stress and anxiety associates with chronic health conditions. She is particularly interested in examining the association of genomic and biological variants with chronic stress and anxiety in the context of psychological, behavioral, and social factors. Her primary line of research explores how adolescents and emerging adults with childhood chronic health conditions and their family members respond to acute and chronic every day and illness-related stressors, including living with and managing a childhood chronic health condition. Dr. Ersig seeks to help identify new avenues to improve the stress experiences of individuals living with significant chronic medical conditions.
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Theresa Watts, RN, MPH, CPH
Theresa Watts is a PhD candidate. Her program of research incorporates population health perspectives to identify health disparities that form patterns of infectious diseases and afflicts the health of disadvantaged populations. Theresa’s current research focuses on the intersection between the opioid epidemic, associated injection drug use, and rise in hepatitis C virus infections among young adult women. The goal of her research is to improve prevention programs and health policy for women who are at risk for, or who are living with hepatitis C virus.