SCHOLAR DIRECTORY

Paula is a Johns Hopkins School of Nursing PhD Candidate. She earned her Master of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and graduated with honors from the University of Michigan, School of Nursing in Ann Arbor. Since earning her BSN in 1987, Paula has been striving to improve health care and health services for underserved and at-risk populations. Building on her extensive public health nursing experience in the US and in African and Asian countries, Paula is pursuing her doctorate to become a nursing leader through cutting-edge research and innovative teaching methods. Her dissertation research is on the relationship between loneliness, and other social determinants of health, and systemic inflammation linked to cardiovascular disease. She aims to develop and test innovative interventions addressing social determinants of health. Paula’s research residency at the NIH/NINR focused on traumatic brain injury and sleep in military personnel and veterans. With knowledge acquired through the 2014 NINR Summer Genetics Institute she published one paper with her NIH colleagues on improved sleep and changes in inflammatory gene expression in military personnel. She published another paper with JHU colleagues on nursing faculty confidence and competence in genetics. Paula earned a nursing education certificate from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 2015. Recent awards include the 2016 Liesel M. Hiemenz Scholarship and NIH-funded TL1 and T32 traineeships in clinical and translational research and cardiovascular disease prevention. Paula is a member of Sigma Theta Tau.