Faculty Accomplishments
Recent updates from the College of Nursing faculty.
Staja “Star” Booker, PhD, RN, assistant professor, and her research team received a $370,000 award over three years to study movement-evoked pain in older African Americans with knee osteoarthritis. Booker is the principal investigator on the grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. The project, which received a perfect impact score of 10, is titled “Investigating Movement-evoked Pain in osteoArthritic Conditions (IMPACT): An Observational Study to Inform Culturally-Tailored Intervention Development.”
The study focuses on elucidating and understanding movement-evoked pain, or MEP, in older African Americans with knee osteoarthritis. MEP is an emerging concept and represents a shift in assessing pain during movement-based activities rather than simply at rest. Goals include identifying biopsychosocial-behavioral factors implicated in MEP and associated physical function, while developing a collaborative intervention with older African Americans to improve knee pain and function/physical activity.
The K23 grant is an NIH Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award to support junior researchers with potential and commitment through structured mentorship.
The interdisciplinary team that will provide mentorship in achieving the award’s proposed training goals includes senior scientists representing nursing, psychology/pain science, aging and epidemiology/community engagement. Booker’s mentoring team includes Roger Fillingim, PhD, professor and director of the Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence in the UF College of Dentistry; Todd Manini, PhD, associate professor and chief for the Division of Epidemiology and Data Sciences in Gerontology within the Institute on Aging’s Department of Aging and Geriatric Research; Linda Cottler, PhD, MPH, FACE, associate dean for research for the College of Public Health and Health Professions and professor in the department of epidemiology jointly for the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions and the College of Medicine; and Angela Starkweather, PhD, RN, ANCP-BC, CNRN, FAAN, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut.
Ellen Terry, PhD, assistant professor, was awarded $662,000 for Phase II of her K22 award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The project is titled “Neural mechanisms underlying psychosocial contributions to ethnic group differences in pain.”
The overall goal for this mentored career development proposal (K22) is to elucidate the neural mechanism involved in pain catastrophizing and its influence on pain processing in different ethnic groups. Primary training goals for the current proposal are to: develop a comprehensive knowledge base in neuroimaging techniques, methodological designs, data acquisition, data analyses and interpretation of findings; expand knowledge of advanced pain assessment skills, including quantitative sensory testing and clinical models of pain; obtain expertise in principles of experimental design and statistical methodology used for biomedical research, including neuroimaging studies; and enhance translational research skills to function as an independent investigator.
Study 1 (Phase I) will determine whether pain catastrophizing contributes to ethnic group differences in pain-related brain function, clinical pain and pain sensitivity among African Americans and non-Hispanic whites with knee osteoarthritis. Study 2 (Phase II) will characterize the impact of an anti-catastrophizing manipulation on central pain processes and pain among African Americans and non-Hispanic whites with knee osteoarthritis. The proposed career development plan extends from Terry’s prior work on pain catastrophizing and mechanisms of pain processing, and will provide the neuroimaging training and expertise to propel her research.
Stacia Hays, APRN, DNP, CPNP, CCTC, clinical associate professor; Denise Schentrup, APRN, DNP, clinical associate professor and associate dean for clinical affairs; and Leslie Parker, PhD, APRN, NNP-BC, FAAN, associate professor, were inducted as fellows of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. AANP fellows are selected based on outstanding contributions to clinical practice, research, education or policy.
- Executive Associate Dean and Thomas M. and Irene B. Kirbo Endowed Chair Debra Lyon, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FNAP, FAAN, received an award for a National Institute of Nursing Research R21 grant, “Metabolomic signature of PN symptoms in breast cancer over the first year of treatment and survivorship.” The grant is intended to encourage exploratory/developmental research by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of project development. The two-year, $434,000 grant is poised to make a novel and significant impact by illuminating potential metabolomics measures that are associated with psychoneurologic symptoms in women with early-stage breast cancer. The public health impact of breast cancer, its treatments and resultant symptom burden is an ongoing problem given the increasing incidence and prevalence of breast cancer and its significant health-related economic and social consequences. One of the most distressing issues for breast cancer patients and survivors is the burden of symptoms, specifically cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, pain and depressive/anxiety symptoms, termed psychoneurologic symptoms.Through this grant, Lyon’s team will continue to develop the requisite scientific background for refining phenotypes, novel biological factors (metabolomics), and integrated signatures that may form a basis for future biomarker risk assays, as well as targeted interventions to prevent and/or mitigate the severity of psychoneurologic symptoms in women with breast cancer.
- Dr. Lyon joined the Nursing and Related Clinical Sciences Study Section (NRCS) standing panel and will serve a four-year term as of July 2020. Her membership on the standing panel involves a commitment to attend three in-person review meetings during her term. The panel reviews grant applications addressing the clinical management of patients.
Although the annual Southern Nursing Research Society, or SNRS, conference was cancelled this year due to COVID-19, the annual awards were still recognized. In fact, two College of Nursing faculty members were recipients of the four SNRS awards.
- Dr. Lyon received the Distinguished Researcher Award — the highest award given at SNRS. The Distinguished Researcher Award recognizes the contribution of an individual whose established program of research has enhanced the science and practice of nursing in the SNRS region.
- Clinical Associate Professor Leslie Parker, PhD, APRN, NNP-BC, FAAN, received the Mid-Career Researcher Award from the Southern Nursing Research Society. This award recognizes the contribution of a member whose scholarly work influences outcomes in nursing practice, education, health policy, or population health and who is dedicated to mentoring the development of that scholarly work in the next generation of nurse scholars in the SNRS region.
Lisa Scarton, PhD, BSN, assistant professor, was notified that she would receive $50,000 in competitive funding from the UF Health Cancer Center Cancer Population Sciences program. Her study, A Nurse-led Intervention in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Cancer and Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized Feasibility Pilot Study, is timely and important for the many cancer patients with this common comorbidity.
Two Biobehavioral Nursing Science faculty members were awarded promotion from the University of Florida for the 2019-2020 cycle.
- Joyce Stechmiller, PhD, ACNP-BC, FAAN was promoted to professor
- Debra Lynch Kelly, PhD, RN, OCN, CNE, FAAN was promoted to associate professor with tenure
