集美麻豆

Lindsey Horrell, Ph.D., MPH, RN, is interested in how we can communicate better about health. Most immediately, she鈥檚 seeking strategies to appeal to adolescents and young adults (AYAs) who have survived rare and virulent forms of cancer, and who are 鈥渢rying to build independence for the first time,鈥� Horrell explains.

AYAs are often left out of the culture of traditional care, in which they are classified as children or adults, she says. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e either on a bed you don鈥檛 fit on with Mickey Mouse on the wall, or with a lot of really aging patients. It can be a very isolating time.鈥�

Horrell, who is teaching Principles of Evidence-based Nursing and Population Health Theory this year, received an MPH and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She comes to Boston College from UNC鈥檚 Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she was most recently a postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Health Disparities Training Program. There she explored particular complications faced by young adults with cancer, from grappling with transitions in the American health care system, such as losing coverage under their parents鈥� health insurance plans, to changes in their personal lives, such as starting a new romantic relationship or heading off to college.

The study of AYAs is an emerging field, Horrell says. But recruitment can be a challenge, as teens are ready to move on. 鈥淥ur current work is doing focus groups and interviews virtually, so that we don鈥檛 have to rely on participants within an immediate radius,鈥� she says.

Health communication is a long-time area of interest for Horrell. As a graduate student, she worked with researchers at the Gillings School and the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism to enhance public messaging about chronic health conditions. At Boston College, she says, 鈥淚 am looking forward to expanding my collaboration circle, and also continuing my collaborations with my team at UNC.鈥�

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When Melissa Uveges, Ph.D., M.A., RN, worked as a nurse in neonatal intensive care units, she sometimes found herself fixated on how decisions are made. Watching parents make wrenching choices on behalf of babies undergoing treatment for birth defects, or thinking about what makes it easier or harder to determine whether infants with congenital abnormalities should undergo surgery are questions that helped shape her career.

Uveges earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in chemistry from Berry College, a B.S. in nursing from the University of Florida, and an M.S. in nursing and an M.A. in religion with an ethics concentration from Yale before she was chosen for a two-year fellowship in clinical ethics at Montefiore-Einstein Center for Bioethics in N.Y. She received her Ph.D. in nursing in 2018 from Johns Hopkins University, where she focused her dissertation on decision-making among parents of infants who were receiving treatment in neonatal intensive care units for major congenital anomalies.

Currently a member of Boston Children鈥檚 Hospital鈥檚 Ethics Advisory Committee, Uveges was most recently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, where she studied decisionmaking for pediatric populations and their families.

鈥淕enetics specialists are involved in communicating genetic information to families,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ut nurses are at the bedside.鈥� Learning how best to communicate information鈥攁bout best practices or the specific legal and privacy aspects of genetic information in the United States鈥攊s an expanding area of her research. This fall, she is teaching Ethical Issues in Advanced Practice Nursing.

Uveges thinks of nurses as translators of information. 鈥淎 lot of times, nurses are鈥�answering questions and helping [patients and families] understand what it means for them,鈥� she explains. 鈥淣urses tend to build close relationships with the families,鈥� she adds. 鈥淪ometimes we鈥檙e the first ones to learn about their concerns.鈥�

Boston College鈥檚 sense of mission drew her to the school. 鈥淭he focus around social justice really aligns well in terms of my background,鈥� she says. She is looking forward to 鈥渢hinking about how we can...prevent things like discrimination from happening when we learn new information, in genetics or other areas of health care.鈥�

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Shortly after Cherlie Magny-Normilus, Ph.D., FNP-BC, arrived at the Connell School, she learned that she and her research team had been awarded a timely and impressive research grant. The accomplished scholar received a K99/R00 grant