Nursing PhD Faculty

Drawing on 20 years of practice as a nurse-midwife, Dr. Karen Trister Grace’s research interests are in reproductive coercion, intimate partner violence (IPV), pregnancy intention and health disparities. Dr. Grace recently conducted research addressing solutions to housing instability for IPV survivors, as well as a mixed methods study exploring reproductive coercion in Latina women. She has an interest in birth outcomes related to IPV and reproductive coercion, and the intersection with unintended pregnancy. Dr. Grace is a co-editor of the 2nd edition of the “Prenatal & Postnatal Care: A Woman-Centered Approach” textbook.

Dr. Marti Kubik has an 18-year history of extramural-funded research with a focus on youth and families and low-income and minority populations. Nationally recognized in the field of childhood obesity prevention, Dr. Kubik’s work has advanced understanding of the school food environment, contributing to school nutrition policy at state, national and international levels. Other research examined the role of school nursing in obesity prevention. New work piloted a trauma-informed, resilience-based multi-level intervention to reduce violence among urban youth. She has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is a past standing member of the NIH Community-Level Health Promotion Study Section.

Dr. Erin Maughan's research focuses on measuring the effectiveness of school nursing and school health programs that support the need of students (K-12) living in vulnerable situations. Her particular research focus looks at the infrastructure needed to support appropriate school nurse staffing and identifying indicators that best measure the effectiveness of school nursing and school health. Dr. Maughan uses her professional work experience and expertise in mix-method and qualitative designs to not only strengthen the evidence related to school health, but also obtain the data needed to change health and education policy.

Dr. Kyeung Mi Oh’s research focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in public health, health literacy, cancer screening, and smoking cessation. She has done extensive research on culture-specific influences on health behaviors, tobacco use, cancer information seeking, and cancer screening participation among ethnic minorities, particularly Korean American (KA)s. In her past research, she has worked closely with churches, senior resource centers, and community organizations for KAs and gained valuable skills, knowledge, and experience in conducting community-based health research. She recently conducted a smoking cessation intervention study for Chinese and Korean immigrants.

Building on forensic nursing practice experience, Dr. Katherine Scafide’s program of research has focused on improving the detection and documentation of injuries on victims of violence. She is particularly interested in addressing the disparity in how bruises and other skin lesions are recognized in individuals with dark skin. Dr. Scafide’s federally funded projects have included using innovative light technology to improve the physical assessment of injuries on diverse skin tones, with expanded interest in early pressure injury detection.