SCHOLAR DIRECTORY

Marta Bruce read postcolonial theory at Antioch College, and completed her undergraduate studies at the Evergreen State College in political economy with an emphasis on the Middle East. Marta interned with a human rights organization in Cairo, Egypt, while studying Arabic and researching public health issues affecting the Zabbaleen people following the 2009 H1N1 influenza epidemic. Marta’s previous health care experience includes working at a children’s clinic in southern India, and serving her rural New Mexico community as a firefighter. Marta is a Hillman Scholar in Nursing Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and her research foci include psychological health following injury, PTSD, trauma-informed care and health equity. Marta was awarded a NIH Supplement Diversity Grant to work under Dr. Therese Richmond’s mentorship on her study investigating psychological issues following traumatic injuries among urban Black men in Philadelphia. Marta presented the findings of her study at the national meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR) and at the Eastern Nursing Research Society (ENRS) in spring of 2015. The findings of her study were published in The Journal for Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, and she was lead author. Marta currently works as a staff nurse at the trauma center at Penn Presbyterian. Her current research utilizes geospatial analysis (GIS) to examine the links between neighborhood characteristics and PTS and Depression symptom severity following serious traumatic injury in urban Black men.