Biography

My interest is in nursing knowledge development and translational science. Nursing has a rich history in the development of the knowledge of how to care for individuals and groups. All of that knowledge development occurred within the political structures of a given point in time and location - that led me to my interest in critical social theory. Now is a great time to be a nurse as nursing currently embraces a great variety of viewpoints and methods for knowledge development that range from experimental design to aesthetic analysis. I enjoy all of these. As a nurse educator I get to teach research methods as a form of critical thinking and as a methodology at various levels of the curriculum. I work with some great students. I am continually amazed at the creativity and depth of human understanding nurses and nursing students bring to their practice. I enjoy seeing how these understandings translate into research projects and clinical improvement projects. I am currently working with the LSU School of Dentistry on Interprofessional Simulation. I have worked with interdisciplinary research teams studying bone loss at the University of North Carolina and University of Michigan and locally with MiHIA.