Researcher and Scholar Spotlights
The School of Nursing is shaping the future of nursing education and patient care through a wide and varying range of research and scholarship programming.
ADELITA G. CANTU, PHD (’06), RN, FAAN, associate professor, specializes in public and community health nursing. Her program of teaching, service and research is dedicated to promoting healthy communities by strengthening public and community health initiatives. Cantu’s work is rooted in the socioecological model, serving as a framework to prevent disease and enhance health and well-being across primary, secondary and tertiary levels of prevention.
ALLISON D. CRAWFORD, PHD (’21), RN, assistant professor, examines health disparities in childbearing communities influenced by incarceration. Through her research, she developed JUN, a mobile health application, which aims to enhance self-efficacy in underserved childbearing women. Long term, Crawford will further utilize her post-doctoral training in digital health to develop, tailor and test similar interventions that use technology to enhance access to care discreetly and affordably for populations with high risk factors.
BERTHA E. FLORES, PHD, PHD, RN, WHNP-BC, associate professor, contributes to the field of health disparities by underscoring the importance of cultural literacy and the use of code switching in health communication. She is currently participating in a multicomponent intervention aimed at expanding hepatitis C virus screening and efforts to increase the use of human papillomavirus vaccines among medically underserved young adults in Texas.
MEGAN P. LIPPE, PHD, RN, ANEF, FPCN, FAAN, associate professor, advances palliative care competence, evidenced by her leadership as an End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium co-investigator. Her revision of national competence statements for undergraduate and graduate education (CARES and G-CARES, respectively) is endorsed by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. She has also developed quantitative measures to assess primary palliative care curriculum and competence among nursing students and entry-to-practice nurses, alongside pioneering high-fidelity palliative care simulations.
KELLY MCGLOTHEN-BELL, PHD (’17), RN, IBCLC, assistant professor, focuses on community-informed health outcomes research, emphasizing projects on maternal-child health. She aims to address gaps in reproductive rights and child welfare laws impacting families in Texas. Through existing partnerships, she supports policies and strategies improving maternal-child health at state and national levels. She also investigates how discrimination and stigma affect access to obstetrical care and treatment services among pregnant and parenting people with substance use disorder, intending to develop stigma-reduction interventions to reduce disparities.
NORMA MARTINEZ ROGERS, PHD, MSN (’78), RN, FAAN, professor emeritus, recruits and engages baccalaureate nursing students in community-based primary care for underserved populations. As part of her role in the Office of Nursing Research, Rogers guides faculty pursuing scholarship endeavors and grant funding. She also chairs the board of Ride Connect Texas, a nonprofit that provides transportation for the elderly to access health care, demonstrating her continued dedication to nursing and advocacy for the underserved.
KAREN SCHWAB, PHD, MSN (’01), APRN, CPNP-PC, PMHS, associate professor/clinical, concentrates on the specific health care needs of children receiving foster care services. She is working to expand foster care health services across Texas’ Public Health Region 8, which is composed of 28 counties in Central Texas and the Hill Country that extend from Del Rio to Victoria. Schwab’s efforts help ensure youth in foster care begin receiving consistent medical care.
BIANCA SHIEU, PHD, RN, assistant professor, investigates initiatives aimed at enhancing the quality of life and care for younger nursing home residents as well as improving the overall quality of care within the long-term care system. Her current research focuses on the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions, specifically auricular point acupressure, to address chronic pain management in individuals affected by dementia. Shieu is a 2024 National Institute on Aging Butler-Williams Scholar.
