Faculty Research Interests

These School of Nursing faculty members are involved in innovative, timely research. Click on the faculty member's name to learn more about them.

  • Anderson, Sarah

    Injury Patterns After Sexual Assault

  • Annan, Sandra

    Intimate partner violence, Sexual assault, Rural communities, Post-traumatic stress

  • Baernholdt, Marianne

    Community, hospital, and nursing unit characteristics influence on quality of care and clinical outcomes in rural hospitals

  • Barbero, Edie

    Grief related topics

  • Bourguignon, Cheryl

    Investigating the effects of complementary and alternative therapies on symptoms (pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, stress, and mood), inflammation, and brain activation (using fMRIs) in persons with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.

  • Boyer, Diane

    Impact of Newborn Hospitalization on Parent-Infant bonding & lactation

  • Brashers, Valentina

    Nurse and Physician Collaborative Education and Practice; Clinical Indicators of Erythema in Darkly Pigmented Skin

  • Brodie, Barbara

    History of health care and health professionals

  • Brown, Cynthia

    Health Promotion and Prevention, Perspectives of Persons with Chronic Hepatitis C Virus, Use of Herbal Therapies, Massage Therapy

  • Burns, Suzanne

    Known for work in the area of mechanical ventilation, weaning and clinical research. Publishes and lectures widely on these and other related topics.

  • Campbell, Cathy

    End-of-life decision making

  • Childress, Reba

    Clinical Simulation, Nephrology

  • Conway, Deborah

    Medical device and product evaluation through the Health Care Product Evaluation Center

  • Cox, Kathleen

    Health Services Reseach, Outcomes Research, Quality, Impact of Nursing Practice Environment on Outcomes, Instrumentation, Conflict in Organizations

  • DeGennaro, Regina

    Clinical Faculty and Clinician Nursing Education Resources and Teaching; Oncology and Palliative Care Nursing

  • Delgado, Sarah

    research interest in ethics, and health disparity

  • Drake, Emily

    high-risk pregnancy, breastfeeding, maternal responsivness and attachment, postpartum depression, instrument development, technology

  • Drought, Theresa

    Bioethics, clinical decision making for the decisionally incapacitated, frail elders, theoretical and empirical enquiry, critical theory

  • Epstein, Elizabeth

    End of Life Issues, Ethics, Pediatrics

  • Erickson, Jeanne

    Cancer Symptom Management

  • Erwin, Elizabeth

    Mentoring and social justice interventions for at risk young people to support their healthy transition to adulthood; developing community collaborations to provide mental health services for vulnerable populations; intervention fidelity; measure development; and social information processing.

  • Farrell, Sarah

    Exploring innovative uses of emerging technology in the application of screening, educating and treating mental disorders; Improving mental health outcomes and developing the subsequent policy and procedural implications for action

  • Fletcher, Kathleen

    Use of Advanced Practice Nurses to improve the care of the elderly in acute and long term care settings, Enhancing the quality of care in acute and long term care through education

  • Glick, Doris

    Community development, access to care, utilization of services, cultural aspects of breastfeeding, Global Health.

  • Gray, Mikel

    Pathophysiology of lower urinary tract function, continence nursing, evidence based practice

    Current Research Interests: My current research focus includes neurological urology, quality assurance in the urodynamic laboratory and moisture associated skin damage.

  • Greiner, Doris

    Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nursing

  • Hamric, Ann

    Moral Distress and ethical behavior of healthcare providers, research integrity and research ethics, and advanced practice nursing role issues.

  • Harmon, Rebecca

    Severe and persistent mental illness, History of psychiatric nursing, Patient teaching

  • Major depressive disorder, women’s mental health, Rural mental health services research, alternative care systems, rural mental health, mental health in primary care.

  • Haugh, Kathryn

    Quality of Life in Chronic Heart Failure: Older Adults and Underserved Populations

  • Hollen, Patricia

    Understanding the effect of intervention on quality of life for different high-risk populations. My intervention for adolescents — both healthy and those with chronic diseases such as cancer — concentrates on refining decision-making skills to reduce risk behaviors. Cancer-surviving adolescents are essentially well adolescents, exhibiting typical teen risk behaviors (such as smoking and alcohol use). But, they are often at greater risk when engaging in risk behaviors than those in the general population because of treatment late effects on body organs and the potential for second malignancies. For adults with lung cancer and malignant pleural mesothelioma, my program of research centers on measuring quality of life as an endpoint for testing new therapies during clinical trials.

  • Innes, Kim

    Mind-body therapies for the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease and related insulin resistance conditions; reproductive/perinatal and chronic disease epidemiology

  • Jones, Randy

    My primary research interest is in health disparities among minority/vulnerable populations, particularly the relationship between prostate cancer and African Americans. In addition, I have an interest in psychosocial behaviors of patients with cancer as it relates to screening behaviors and treatment decision making, including the use of complementary and alternative therapies.

  • Kane, Catherine

    Serious Mental Illness; Schizophrenia; Rural Community Services; Alternative Care Delivery Models; Family Caregiving; Psychoeducation

  • Keeling, Arlene

    Cardiac nursing, History of Nursing, History of Prescriptive Authority

  • Kirchgessner, John

    History of Nursing and Healthcare; nursing as a labor force.

  • Kulbok, Pamela

    Theoretical and Empirical Inquiry, Health Promotion, Health Behavior of Young People, and Youth Tobacco Prevention

  • Lancaster, Jeanette

    Public health, Change, Leadership

  • Laughon, Kathryn

    Identifying and preventing poor health outcome associated with violence against women. The relationship between women’s experiences of violence and their increased risk for sexually transmitted infections.

  • Mahone, Irma

    Mental Health, Rurality

  • Merwin, Elizabeth

    Shortages of Mental Health Providers, Nurses and Primary Care Providers; Effectiveness of Rural Health and Rural Mental Health Care; Community and Translational Sciences Research with a focus on rural communities.

  • Newberry, Yvonne

    Fetal Pelvic Index, HIV in women, HIV & infertility, nurse practitioner & medical student education

  • Noland, Lynn

    research ethics, prevention of complications of ESRD

  • O'Laughlen, Mary

    Pediatric Asthma

  • Palmer, Constance

    Evidence based Practice, community Nursing clinics,

  • Parker, Barbara

    Violence against women; women`s health, Homicide survivors, methodological and measurement issues

  • Quatrara, Beth

    Medical surgical nursing

  • Ramwell, Carolyn

    Pediatric Cardiology: Electrophysiology

  • Ratliff, Catherine

    Wound healing and factors that effect healing such as infection as well as topical dressings and adjunctive wound therapies (e.g. HBO), and the effect of aging on wound healing.

  • Reid, Kathryn

    Chronic disease management, Health behavior, Coaching, Nursing education

  • Reigle, Juanita

    Advanced ECG interpretation, nursing ethics, Heart Failure, Cardiac dysrhythmias and Physical Restraints.

  • Rigney, Dawn

    Health promotion in culturally diverse populations, family, and strategic management in nursing education.

  • Rose, Karen

    Health outcomes of caregivers of persons with dementia

  • Rovnyak, Virginia

    Statistical applications, with a special interest in survey analysis

  • Sands, Judy

    Issues in undergraduate education.

  • Southall, Vickie

    Pediatric nursing, community health nursing, rural nursing, school health.

  • Steeves, Rick

    Adults who experienced the homicide of one parent by the other when they were children.

  • Sutherland, Melissa

    Violence against women, STIs/HIV, rural health

  • Taliaferro-Jones, Elizabeth

    Nursing Education

  • Taylor, Ann

    My disciplined line of research over two decades was in pain management and in the last decade expanded to include assessment of the efficacy, safety, and cost effectiveness of selected complementary therapies with particular emphasis on symptom management and control.

    I am Director of the Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies at the University of Virginia ( http://www.med.virginia.edu/cscat ). My research has included studies in the CAM program areas of energy medicine, mind-body medicine, body-based practices, and biologically-based practices. My research commitment is to foster the nursing perspective in future efforts that test the effectiveness, cost, and safety of complementary therapies in reducing pain and related symptoms and enhancing patient comfort.

  • Thompson-Heisterman, Anita

    Family, Community and Geriatric Mental Health/Illness.Transition of psychiatric patients to community care, Geropsychiatric nursing, Care of vulnerable populations. Clinical research focus

  • Tullmann, Dorothy

    Delirium in Critically Ill Older Adults; Long-term Outcomes of Delirium

  • Utz, Sharon

    Health Behavior & Chronic Illness. Cultural Aspects of Care. Interventions to Promote Self-Management of Diabetes & Cardiovascular Disease

  • Willcutts, Kate

    Nutrition in the critically ill patient, Nutrition screening and assessment.

  • Williams, Ishan

    Family Caregiving of Older Adults with Dementia; Health Care Access and Treatment of Aging, Rural and Minority Populations; Recuitment

  • Willis, Peggy

    Women’s Health, Obstetrics, and Neonatology.