Zhengui Xia
I am a Professor in the Toxicology Program and an Adjunct Professor in the department of Pharmacology. I am also a Faculty member of the two interdisciplinary graduate programs at U. of Washington- the Neurobiology and Behavior (N&B) Graduate Program and the Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) Graduate Program.
Our current research interests are to: 1) elucidate mechanisms that regulate neurogenesis (the generation of functional neurons) both during brain development and in adult brain, and the physiological function of adult neurogenesis in olfaction and cognition; 2) investigate whether and how exposure to environmental neurotoxicants, such as heavy metals lead and cadmium, may perturb adult neurogenesis and impair olfaction and cognition; 3) test the hypothesis that environmental factors and gene-environment interactions (GXE) may increase Alzheimer’s disease risk and accelerate cognitive decline; 4) investigate potential sex differences on disease susceptibility upon exposure to environmental neurotoxicants; 5) identify window of susceptibility of exposure to lead and cadmium on impairment in olfaction and cognition; 6) identify mechanisms and strategies to mitigate the adverse effect of lead and cadmium neurotoxicity on cognitive impairment. Our lab is a medium sized lab that consists of post-doctoral fellows and students who are bright, motivated, collegial, and friendly.
USA
Dr. Elaine Nsoesie is an Assistant Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Previously, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at HealthMap, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Nsoesie is interested in the use of statistical and computational approaches for public health surveillance. Her research is focused on the modeling of infectious diseases, and the use of emerging technologies and tools for improving understanding of disease spread and public health practice. Dr. Nsoesie also interested in health disparities, global health security and policy.
Dr. Barnabas is an Infectious Disease Physician-Scientist at the University of Washington and affiliate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Her research focuses on HIV treatment and prevention, specifically on interventions that reduce HIV viral load and, consequently, disease progression and transmission. Her projects use empiric data and mathematical models to better understand HIV clinical progression and transmission, and estimate the potential impact of HIV interventions at population level. The ultimate aim of her work is to estimate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of HIV treatment and prevention interventions to inform public health policy.
Dr. Buddy D. Ratner is the Director of University of Washington Engineered Biomaterials (UWEB21) Engineering Research Center, co-director of the Center for Dialysis Innovation (CDI) and the Darland Endowed Chair in Technology Commercialization. He is Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering, University of Washington.
Ratner received his Ph.D. (1972) in polymer chemistry from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. His research interests include biomaterials, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and biocompatibility. Ratner’s research focuses on improving the performance of implanted and ex vivo medical devices. Medical devices such as replacement heart valves, artificial hips, pacemakers, intraocular lenses and hemodialysis systems save the lives of millions and/or improve the quality of life for millions more.
Dr. Beverly Green is a family physician and associate investigator at Group Health and Group Health Research Institute. Her areas of interest include population based screening within organized health care and safety net settings, improving the care of chronic conditions such as hypertension, and leveraging technology to optimize the reach and effectiveness of evidence-based health care. She is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the University of Washington Medical School Department of Family Medicine.
Dr. Nancy Puttkammer is an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health at University of Washington and a Research and Evaluation Advisor at the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH). She completed a PhD in Health Services Research (University of Washington), a MPH in Community Health Education (University of California—Berkeley), and a BA in History (Princeton University). Her research interests are in evaluation of health information systems, assessment of data quality and data use in health information systems, continuous quality improvement of health services, and evaluating strategies to improve adherence and retention in HIV care and treatment programs.
Dr. Puttkammer is collaborating with Ministries of Health in Haiti and Kenya to use observational, routinely-collected data from electronic medical records (EMRs) to evaluate patient retention and other health outcomes in national HIV antiretroviral therapy programs. She works with informatics and training projects in Haiti, Kenya, and South Africa to improve large-scale implementation of EMRs, evaluate data quality and data use, support data analyses, and develop capacity for data use and implementation science research among colleagues and counterparts.
Within the University of Washington, she serves as an instructor for courses in “Fundamentals of Implementation Science” and “Research and Evaluation Methods in Developing Countries.” She has worked with HIV prevention, care and treatment and health systems strengthening programs in the US, Africa and the Caribbean for more than 20 years.
Together with my colleague, Dr. Cari McCarty, we have developed an e-Health tool to assist primary care providers with screening and brief intervention across risk areas for adolescents. We have four active, nationally-funded studies to test this tool in primary care and school-based health settings, separately and in conjunction with provider training. More information about our research is available on our website: http://www.teenhealthcheck.org. I have also conducted work in screening and collaborative care interventions to improve outcomes for adolescents with depression identified via screening in primary care environments in order to improve access to quality care.
Micro- and nano-technologies together with sensing and wireless innovations have been emerging recently as essential assets to enhance healthcare and life-science investigations. Cost and care efficiency, quality and efficacy in hospitals, as well as pharmacology and science discoveries have obtained great benefits from multidisciplinary researches.
While micro- and nano-fabrication provided miniaturized sensors and systems with better sensitivity, selectivity and longevity at minimal power consumption; wireless technology and innovations in electronics helped in cutting healthcare cost, bringing convenience to patients and establishing distanced care which was recently defined as personalized- and tele-medicine of the mobile-health (m-Health) network.
Towards this end, the objectives of HERO laboratory are to introduce a paradigm shift of applying innovative engineering tools for biological investigations and to bridge expertise in different fields providing novel healthcare devices.
A main goal of my research is to investigate mechanisms of ectopic calcification leading to the development of molecular and cellular therapies for chronic kidney disease, diabetes, valve disease, and trauma-related heterotopic ossification. Projects have included mechanistic studies for novel therapeutic targets and treatment for ectopic calcification in disease, traumatic injury, and medical devices, as well as identifying biomimetic strategies to improve biocompatibility and promote tissue regeneration. Populations suffering from renal disease, diabetes, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, and old age are particularly prone to soft tissue calcifications, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. Our research will help to elucidate new ways to prevent and/or treat this debilitating problem in different populations.
Dr. Unützer is Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and an internationally recognized psychiatrist and health services researcher. His work focuses on innovative models that integrate mental health and general medical services and on translating research on evidence-based behavioral health interventions into effective clinical and public health practice. He has over 250 scientific publications and is the recipient of numerous federal and foundation grants and awards for his research to improve the health and mental health of populations through patient-centered integrated mental health services.
Dr. Unützer directs the AIMS Center (Advancing Integrated Mental Health Solutions) which has worked with more than 1,000 primary care practices worldwide to test and implement evidence-based Collaborative Care for depression. He works with national and international organizations dedicated to improving behavioral health care for diverse populations, has served as Senior Scientific Advisor to the World Health Organization and as an advisor to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, and holds adjunct appointments as Professor in the School of Public Health (Departments of Health Services and Global Health) and as Affiliate Investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. Dr. Unützer has advanced training in geriatric psychiatry, public policy and public health.
My research focuses on the development and delivery of novel strategies for HIV prevention, including cross-disciplinary research and implementation science to bring new prevention tools to scale.
Bill enjoys applying his clinical and technology backgrounds to address information management problems in clinical care, public health, and global health. He and his staff build information systems that are used both within academics, to understand and evaluate new approaches and methods, and outside of academics, to deliver real world value in health care.
He received his MD from the University of California, San Francisco, a Master of Health Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University. He completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Arizona, and the Royal Brisbane Hospital, Queensland, Australia, after which he joined the faculty in the Emergency Medicine at University of Washington. While at UW, he was awarded a F38 “mid-career” fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in Applied Medical Informatics. Currently he is a Professor in Health Informatics and Global Health, jointly appointed in UW’s Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health, and directs the UW Clinical Informatics Research Group.
Through population-based research and education activities over the past 35 years, I have contributed to the evidence-base for clinical and economic outcomes associated with medicines, vaccines, and pharmacy services – advancing the role of pharmacists in population health. I directed, for example, a series of studies that served as a catalyst to include a measure on chlamydia screening as a new recommendation by the US Preventive Services Task Force and as a measure included in the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS).
More recently, I led a multi-country study in sub-Saharan Africa on the safety of antimalarials used during early pregnancy. I am a pioneer in the validation and use of large linked databases to evaluate the safety of medicines used in the US and LMICs. I dedicate much of my academic activities to medication safety and use issues in low income countries, supported, in part, by BMGF & USAID & interact with public-private partnerships and contribute time and effort to assess and improve medication-related outcomes in our region.
Dr. Pratt’s research focuses on understanding patients’ needs and designing new technologies to address those needs. She has worked with people coping with a variety of chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, asthma, and heart disease. Dr. Pratt has received best paper awards from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and the Journal of the American Society of Information Science & Technology (JASIS&T). Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, Intel, and Microsoft. Dr. Pratt is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.
Julie A. Kientz is an Associate Professor in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She directs the Computing for Healthy Living and Learning Lab, is active in the Design, Use, Build (dub) alliance, and has adjunct appointments in The Information School and Computer Science & Engineering. Dr. Kientz
I am a Cardiologist and health services researcher interested in improving the delivery of cardiac rehabilitation. I practice at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and am an Acting Assistant Professor in the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Cardiac rehabilitation improves health outcomes and quality of life for patients with heart disease, but is underused, with less than 20% of eligible patients participating. There are disparities in participation nationally, locally, and across racial/ethnic and gender groups. There are many barriers to patients attending, including suboptimal rates of referral, limited understanding of cardiac rehabilitation and its benefits, and limited access to traditional cardiac rehabilitation centers due to costs, transportation, and competing work or family demands.
My research program focuses on:
1) Understanding gaps in the delivery of cardiac rehabilitation
2) Developing interventions to improve the delivery of cardiac rehabilitation using an implementation science approach. Particularly, I am focused on interventions in these two areas:
– home-based cardiac rehabilitation
– technology-facilitated home cardiac rehabilitation (e.g., mobile applications, text messaging)
Please feel free to contact me about potential collaborations. There are many opportunities for novel ideas to help people with heart disease to live healthier and more fulfilling lives!
Dr. LeRouge has a 15-year history of e health research focused on health IT design (user centered design and design science), quality, workflow, operations, adoption and acceptance, and a history of health IT evaluation. Her public health interests relate to: 1) the development and tailoring of consumer health technologies for baby boomers and older populations as well as overweight adolescents; 2) health information management practices and possibilities for older adults and 3) health information. The success of health IT initiatives are a combination of social, technical, and clinical issues; and therefore, outcomes of interest in the work I pursue are typically a cross section of social, technical and clinical challenges and outcomes that I explore through qualitative and quantitative data analysis.
Dr. Cari McCarty is a Clinical Psychologist, Research Professor in Pediatrics and Adjunct Research Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, and the Evaluation Lead for the University of Washington Leadership in Adolescent Health (LEAH) Program. She has been on faculty at the University of Washington for the past 14 years, and has developed a research program to understand the interrelationships between mental health, physical health and alcohol and substance use disorders throughout adolescence.
She currently is leading four grants focused on screening and intervening to reduce adolescent health risk behaviors. Because health risk screenings for teens are not performed as often as is recommended, and are rarely followed by targeted risk reduction interventions, we are studying personalized feedback as a way to impact teen risk and improve clinical care. Specifically, we have developed an electronic health tool, and are studying whether it helps increase conversations between teens and healthcare providers during appointments, and helps to reduce high-risk behaviors for youth.
A clinical informatician at Seattle Children’s (one of the original members of their Clinical Effectiveness Team since 2008). We have created over 60 clinical pathways with clinical recommendations/algorithms, clinical decision support, and analytics-specified measurement affecting over 40% of admissions. In addition to this group, am working at UW Medicine IT Services to create population health dashboards to support improved medical practice through integrating analytic information with the EHR system at the point of care.
I study social and ethical aspects of visualization, currently focusing on self-representation practices of individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Through participatory research methods, my team seeks to better understand the ways in which the display of self-tracking data influences self-acceptance, empathy, communication, and stigma among those living with bipolar and their support networks.
Tom Achoki, MD, MPH, is Clinical Assistant Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. He has over 10 years’ progressive experience in population health research and program management at country, regional, and global levels. His areas of interest include monitoring and evaluation; program implementation and research; and health systems strengthening.
Dr. Achoki earned his medical degree from the University of Nairobi and worked at the Kenya National Hospital. He then joined the Ministry of Health in Kenya as a medical officer, working at the district level. After earning a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine specialization from the University of Pretoria, Dr. Achoki joined Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold in 2007 as a Public Health Specialist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Previously, he was at the World Economic Forum as a Project Manager and Global Leadership Fellow, serving as coordinator and technical advisor to the Private Sector Constituency of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership.
Dr. Achoki completed a two-year Post-Graduate Fellowship at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. He then joined the Ministry of Health in Botswana as a Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, providing overall technical support in health system performance assessment. Dr. Achoki is registered as a Public Health Specialist in Botswana, and he is active in a number of professional and charitable associations.
My work focuses on workplace determinants of health among working populations. Traditionally, this has involved safety hazards, chemicals, dusts and physical agents used in the course of work. More recently, I have turned my attention to the psychosocial work environment, and making the connections between working conditions, worker health and community health sequelae.
My focus is on issues of alcohol and drug use/misuse/dependence among individuals with HIV as this affects treatment engagement, adherence, and outcomes. I have worked with colleagues at the University of Nairobi in Kenya on intervention development for individuals with HIV+ who are entering ART treatment and who have hazardous or harmful alcohol use. Also in my role as Director of the Center for AIDS Research’s (CFAR) Substance Abuse and HIV/STI Scientific Work Group, I provide consultation to researchers in CFAR and in the Department of Global Health who are incorporating alcohol and/or drug use into their research work in Africa and South America.
I am an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at University of Washington School of Medicine and Adjunct Associate Professor within the Department of Global Health at UW.
I work clinically at Harborview Medical Center and consider my main contribution to population health to be my position as Fellowship Director for the UW Global Emergency Medicine and Rural Health Fellowship, as well as in my position as Director of Ultrasound Education for Partners In Health, a multi-national health related NGO dedicated to capacity building and health system Strengthening and low income countries.
My main focus has been to develop the fellowship in an effort to create UW leaders in global health with focus on improving rural emergency care, humanitarian emergencies and health system strengthening/capacity building in rural, international and WWAMI region communities.
Our work on population health, funded by the National Institute of Aging, applies a process point-of-view to model effects of health behavior and the environment on mortality patterns. The approach mathematically describes mortality in terms of time and age varying interactions of intrinsic physiological and extrinsic environmental processes. Mortality is the result of random extrinsic environmental challenges to the age-declining vitality, an abstract measure with foundations in cellular aging processes.
A recent analysis identified a longevity advantage of identical twins compared to the general population in terms of the effects of twinhood in providing stress-reducing emotional support and buffering against risky behavior. A second analysis of world mortality patterns indicates that most of the historical improvement in longevity in countries involved the reduction of extrinsic environmental and event-based challenges. Future longevity increases in developed countries will likely be controlled by the gradual decrease in the rate of senescence associated with improving health behavior. Current work is seeking to identify the combined effects of health behavior and environmental stress on state-level patterns of mortality in the U.S.
As a lecturer, I primarily teach and mentor students. In this capacity, I teach in the undergraduate Public Health Major the Science in Public Health Course as well as a Life Course Nutrition course for undergraduates. These courses link the pathophysiology of disease to factors that prevent or promote disease, with a particularly focus on chronic disease and nutrition.
Several research projects I am working on touch on population health. The first project looks at the relationship between sodium, potassium, and CVD in a multiethnic cohort. The second project that has just started will address the achievement gap in undergraduate education and determine the impact of SES, gender, and race on course performance. The broad purpose of this research will be to identify effective teaching methods to reduce the achievement gap in education.
Lastly, I worked with other UW Health Sciences Schools in interprofessional education (IPE) and helped develop the Population Health focused session as part of the four sessions IPE Foundations series for all health sciences students.
Sean Rundell is a physical therapist and an epidemiologist. He’s an Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services.
Sean conducts epidemiologic and health services research of chronic musculoskeletal conditions, with a focus on low back pain and chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions in older adults. Within this research area, his interests include patient-centered outcomes research, improving care for chronic conditions, multiple chronic conditions, and social determinants of health.
Sean is a core member of the interdisciplinary Comparative Effectiveness, Cost, and Outcomes Research Center here at UW. Some of his collaborations within this group has involved using large electronic data sources and applying natural language processing to abstract information from free text data.
Dr. Heaton’s research interests focus on access to dental care in adults with mental illness, incorporating non-dental healthcare professionals (such as pharmacists) in providing oral health recommendations to individuals lacking dental resources, and increasing dental treatment-seeking for individuals who avoid dental care due to fear and other barriers.
Since 2005, she has worked in the Dental Fears Research Clinic to help patients manage and overcome their dental fears and anxieties in order to receive regular dental care and maintain their dental health.
She also works in the Oral Medicine Clinic, helping patients develop means of coping with and reducing chronic facial pain.
Dr. Veenstra’s primary research interests are the clinical, economic, and policy implications of using genomic information in healthcare.
His major research projects include evaluation of pharmacogenomics in diverse populations, decision modeling to inform research prioritization and stakeholder decision-making in oncology, and evaluation of the clinical, economic, and personal utility of whole genome sequencing.
Dr. Veenstra’s other major research interest is the development of disease simulation, risk-benefit, and cost-effectiveness models.
Dr. Carlson’s current research interests and work to date has primarily focused on the intersection of three areas:
1) genomics and emerging technologies in the field of personalized medicine,
2) uncertainty both in our decision-making processes and as the concept applies to the application of medical technologies in “real world” settings (i.e. outside of clinical trials) including comparative effectiveness research, and
3) economic and policy options to address these uncertainties as we seek to improve our healthcare system and the health of our population.
Dr. Ho studies the relationships between drug target distribution and its relationship to disease development in cancer, AIDS, and neurological disorders. Building on this understanding, he has developed a systems Approach to Drug Delivery and Targeting.
He is known for his expertise in bio-therapeutics, lipid-drug and -protein interactions, liposomes, lipid nanoparticles, pharmacokinetics, and the interplay between tissue targets and drug penetration. His research has led to enhanced HIV, cancer, and pain medication potency and safety.
In addition, he is an editor of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and author of “Biotechnology and Biopharmaceuticals: Transforming Proteins and Gene into Drugs.”
Dr. Kost is interested in learning how to best educate medical students to meet the healthcare needs of urban underserved populations.
She teaches the second year introduction to clinical medicine course as part of her role as college mentor, advises students interested in pursuing a career in family medicine and is developing components of the new UWSOM curriculum.
Dr. Chi’s research involves understanding disparities in access to dental care for publicly-insured children, the sociobehavioral determinants of children’s dental care use, outcomes associated with dental utilization, and conceptual model building on health behavior.
Dr. Chi also has research interests in the determinants of dental care transitions for adolescents with chronic conditions, neighborhood-level health effects, and preventive health care decision making.
Dr. Mamani’s research interests include: healthcare operations; healthcare delivery; public health policy, Supply chain coordination; incentives mechanisms, product diversions in supply chains, inventory Management, and new product development projects.
Dr. Forehand’s research focuses on consumer identity and health marketing and has appeared in marketing, psychology and public health journals. Mark is an Associate Editor at Journal of Consumer Psychology and serves on the Editorial Review Board of Journal of Consumer Research.
Within public health, Professor Forehand is a science core investigator within the Health Marketing Research Center, a CDC-funded center of excellence at the University of Washington, has served as a Faculty Advisor for the START team in the Department of Global Health that works directly with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and has received grant support from the National Institutes for Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
He has participated in research on optimal intervention design and dissemination for issues ranging from smoking cessation, HIV testing among minority populations, and the promotion of healthy eating habits for children.
Rebecca O’Connor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Child Nursing and an Innovative Educator Fellow in the School of Nursing. Her early research identified a novel disease trend previously hidden by widely-used, but limited classifications of race and ethnicity: specifically that the prevalence rate of type 1 diabetes is 4 times higher in East African immigrant youth than in non-immigrant Black youth in King County. To explore why this might be, further research is needed but it became clear that these populations were not participating in ongoing low-risk type 1 diabetes research being conducted at the same location they were receiving their diabetes care.
Due in part to this observation, Dr. O’Connor’s interest in issues of health equity have evolved and her teaching, research, and service efforts are now focused on 1) increasing the diversity of pediatric clinical research participants so that all populations may benefit from research advances, and 2) exploring how implicit bias among health care providers might play a role in persistent health disparities, especially among youth with diabetes. She has received funding from the ITHS Rising Stars program to explore the former, and her Innovative Educator Fellowship supports her work in addressing implicit bias among future health practitioners.
Dr. Pratt’s research focuses on understanding patients’ needs and designing new technologies to address those needs. She has worked with people coping with a variety of chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, asthma, and heart disease. Dr. Pratt has received best paper awards from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and the Journal of the American Society of Information Science & Technology (JASIS&T). Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, Intel, and Microsoft. Dr. Pratt is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.
Carina is the Benjamin Rabinowitz Assistant Professor in Medical Ethics at the Philosophy Department. She is also a member of the Program on Values in Society, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Bioethics and Humanities. She is particularly focused on research and teaching at the intersection of social justice and medical ethics, for example in public health ethics and policy, social-relational equality and its application to health, sufficientarianism, gender and racial inequalities, the social determinants of health, and health care policy and reform.
The overall goal of our research programs in cardiovascular disease are to enhance physical and psychosocial health and to reduce health care costs in patients and their family members. Within the program of research are 4 foci: intervention models to enhance adjustment, exercise interventions to improve function, cardiovascular disease management interventions, and interventions in end stage or advanced heart disease.
Dr. Unützer is Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and an internationally recognized psychiatrist and health services researcher. His work focuses on innovative models that integrate mental health and general medical services and on translating research on evidence-based behavioral health interventions into effective clinical and public health practice. He has over 250 scientific publications and is the recipient of numerous federal and foundation grants and awards for his research to improve the health and mental health of populations through patient-centered integrated mental health services.
Dr. Unützer directs the AIMS Center (Advancing Integrated Mental Health Solutions) which has worked with more than 1,000 primary care practices worldwide to test and implement evidence-based Collaborative Care for depression. He works with national and international organizations dedicated to improving behavioral health care for diverse populations, has served as Senior Scientific Advisor to the World Health Organization and as an advisor to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, and holds adjunct appointments as Professor in the School of Public Health (Departments of Health Services and Global Health) and as Affiliate Investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. Dr. Unützer has advanced training in geriatric psychiatry, public policy and public health.
Micro- and nano-technologies together with sensing and wireless innovations have been emerging recently as essential assets to enhance healthcare and life-science investigations. Cost and care efficiency, quality and efficacy in hospitals, as well as pharmacology and science discoveries have obtained great benefits from multidisciplinary researches.
While micro- and nano-fabrication provided miniaturized sensors and systems with better sensitivity, selectivity and longevity at minimal power consumption; wireless technology and innovations in electronics helped in cutting healthcare cost, bringing convenience to patients and establishing distanced care which was recently defined as personalized- and tele-medicine of the mobile-health (m-Health) network.
Towards this end, the objectives of HERO laboratory are to introduce a paradigm shift of applying innovative engineering tools for biological investigations and to bridge expertise in different fields providing novel healthcare devices.
The long-term goal of my research program is to understand how epigenetic mechanisms facilitate responses to abiotic stress in plants.
I use maize (Zea mays) as my predominant organism of study. Maize is an essential agronomical crop; important to global agriculture and the United States economy. Maize yield can be significantly affected by environmental, abiotic stress factors such as drought, salinity, cold, UV-B radiation and nutrient deficiency. The impact of environmental stress can significantly affect global food security and the U.S. economy.
I use molecular, genetics and genomics approaches to understand stress response mechanisms at the transcriptional level. I am specifically interested in how epigenetic mechanisms, associated with modifications to chromatin, regulate plant stress response. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms of epigenetic responses to environmental stress factors will be useful in improving agricultural productivity.
Dr. Salathé conducts research on regional climate change and the impacts of climate change on human and natural systems. This research supports climate impacts applications in many fields including air quality, hydrology, agriculture, and human health with a focus on the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
His current research focuses on how local weather and land-surface processes can affect the regional response to the increased risk of flooding as a result of climate change. His teaching interests include climate science and applied mathematics.
Davis Patterson, PhD, is a sociologist and a research assistant professor in the University of Washington (UW) Department of Family Medicine in Seattle, Washington. He is Director of the Collaborative for Rural Primary care Research, Education, and Practice (Rural PREP), Deputy Director of the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center, and an investigator in the UW Center for Health Workforce Studies.
Dr. Patterson’s research and evaluation activities seek to inform policy and improve rural and underserved populations’ access to healthcare, with a particular focus on the health workforce. His current research includes studies examining which medical education programs produce rural physicians and how those programs can be supported, the potential for allied health providers to fill healthcare gaps, and factors affecting rural patient access to home health care.
Dr. Baldwin is a family physician and a Professor in the UW Department of Family Medicine. Her research focuses on implementing evidence-based practices into clinical care and ensuring equitable access to high quality health services across rural and urban areas. Dr. Baldwin brings particular expertise in facilitating research collaborations with clinicians and clinical organizations and in using electronic health record and administrative data to examine the quality and outcomes of clinical care.
As Director of the Institute of Translational Health Services’ (ITHS’) Community Engagement Program, Dr. Baldwin has developed a 58-clinic primary care practice‐based research network, the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho (WWAMI) region Practice and Research Network (WPRN), which supports collaborative research between academic investigators and clinical practices. The WPRN includes a data sharing network, Data QUEST, that draws from diverse electronic health records across a subset of the WPRN clinics. Dr. Baldwin also has developed a collaborative regional clinical research network, the ITHS’ Northwest PCI Network,involving 12 diverse clinical health systems and academic institutions in the five state WWAMI region. Dr. Baldwin works with these networks and with other academic researchers to disseminate effective health interventions into practice and to develop and test tools that promote clinical engagement and collaboration in translational research.
Dr. Cole is a family physician and researcher at the University of Washington in the School of Medicine. Her research program focuses on improving cancer screening through implementation of evidence-based programs in primary care practices and health systems. She is Associate Director for the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) region Practice and Research Network and collaborates with diverse academic investigators and community-based primary care practices to support the translation of scientific discovery into population health.
Sharon S. Laing is an assistant professor at the University of Washington Tacoma, Nursing and Healthcare Leadership Programs and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Health Services Department, UW Seattle, School of Public Health.
Her research targets patient healthcare decision-making and self-care management; her current scholarship evaluates the effectiveness of health promotive mobile devices to advance patient-centered care and improve clinical outcomes for low-resource communities.
My research is based at the Health Promotion Research Center (HPRC) in the Department of Health Services, School of Public Health. HPRC is one of CDC’s 26 Prevention Research Centers.
My work focuses on dissemination and implementation of evidence-based interventions. I have two primary focus areas. The first is cancer prevention and control. I am the principal investigator of the Alliance for Reducing Cancer, Northwest, a network focused on reducing health disparities in cancer screening.
My team’s work in this area includes partnering with CDC, the Washington State Department of Health, and federally qualified health centers to implement and evaluate evidence-based colon cancer screening interventions. The second is workplace health promotion. HPRC has several projects focused on assisting small and low-wage worksites to implement evidence-based interventions to promote the health of their employees. Other projects are more focused on large employers, both private and public.
Our partners for these projects include the American Cancer Society, the Washington State Department of Health, the Washington State Health Care Authority, and several local health jurisdictions.
Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN is The Aljoya Endowed Professor in Aging in the School of Nursing and an investigator with the Health Promotion Research Center at University of Washington. She is the lead of the CDC-funded Coordinating Center for the Healthy Brain Research Network. Her scholarship focuses on improving the health of older adults through dissemination initiatives with a focus on physical activity interventions.
I specialize in occupational health services research, and in program and policy evaluation. My research interests include access to and quality of health care and other services provided through the workers’ compensation system and the vocational rehabilitation system for injured workers, under-reporting and cost-shifting for work-related injuries and illnesses, the health care workforce, and improving and expanding data resources for occupational injury surveillance and outcomes research. I am also interested in the health and cost-related outcomes of interventions related to risky prescribing practices and substance use.
Exploring phenomena from the molecular to the global level, MAGH uniquely integrates approaches from social, cultural, medical, and biocultural anthropology into a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing local and global health issues. With anthropology faculty renowned for their scholarship on population and health, and links to programs across campus addressing global health, the area of emphasis provides a venue for new insights, new approaches, and new opportunities for understanding health and well-being.
The mission of training in Medical Anthropology & Global Health is to provide a new generation of scholars and future health professionals with the skills necessary to identify and operationalize methods, analytical frameworks, and campus-community partnerships that contribute to addressing health challenges around the world. This track is unique in US undergraduate education. We also offer graduate training, and the possibility of a concurrent PhD/MPH.