School of Public Health Dept. of Health Services  Dept. of EOHS NW Center for Occupational Health & Safety

Selected Alumni and Students

Alumni

  • Colleen Daly, PhD, MPH
    Dr. Daly currently works at Microsoft Corporation within HR supporting the Entertainment & Devices division on the Diversity and Inclusion Team. Her employment at Microsoft was a direct result of research performed as an ERC Trainee in the doctoral program. She graduated in 2007, after completing her dissertation using data from the Boeing Corporation, "Does changing work organization through telecommuting affect individual health? A focus on stress and health behavior."

    As an employee at Microsoft, one of the largest private sector employers in Region 10, Colleen's work has contributed to Occupational Health Services in Region 10 and for the nation. She analyzes employee data from multiple sources within the company to identify areas where employee disparities exist and makes recommendations to reduce those disparities within the company. For any solution or initiative that is implemented, Dr. Daly designs, executes, analyzes and summarizes all evaluation components that are used to measure the effects of the initiatives and the impact they have on employees and within the business. Dr. Daly maintains connections she made while an ERC trainee, including collaboration with the University of Minnesota to conduct a process evaluation of a flexwork pilot program implemented within Microsoft.
  • Jeanne Sears, PhD, RN
    Dr. Sears is currently a Research Scientist in the Department of Health Services at the University of Washington. Her research interests include occupational health services, health disparities and access to health care, and health policy and program evaluation. She graduated from the program in 2007, and her dissertation research evaluated the effects of Washington State pilot legislation that expanded the role of Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners in the workers' compensation system, with respect to access to care, quality, costs, and disability outcomes. Dr. Sears recently completed an evaluation of access to quality health care for injured workers in California, funded under contract with the California Division of Workers' Compensation. She is currently the PI of a five-year study evaluating the effects of legislative reforms intended to improve the performance of Washington State's vocational rehabilitation program for injured workers. In addition, she is working on a number of research projects for the Center for Healthcare Improvement for Addictions, Mental Illness and Medically Vulnerable Populations (CHAMMP).
  • Bert Stover, PhD
    Dr. Stover is a Research Scientist at the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Stover graduated from the program in 2004, and his dissertation research centered on the validation and evaluation of a disability measure for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorder screening in the workplace and prognostic factors of long-term disability. One of Dr. Stover's current projects includes Region 10 workplace safety and health report Occupational Injuries and Illnesses in OSHA Region 10: Safety and Health Surveillance Indicators 2000-2005. In September 2008, he served on a panel discussing methods and applications for workplace surveillance with a focus on government, academic, and business partnerships for the western U.S. at a NIOSH-sponsored meeting. Currently Dr. Stover's team is evaluating interventions to increase hearing protection use among construction workers. Future plans include studying the association between nativity, race, and ethnicity with workplace exposures, injury, illness history, and access to health services across several NIOSH sectors.

Students

  • Janessa Graves, MPH
    Janessa earned her degree in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington before pursuing doctoral studies in the Department of Health Services in 2008. Her research interests include cost-effectiveness research, new technologies, occupational health services, and global health. Prior to joining the program, she led research projects in Mexico, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kenya, and the United States. Janessa's dissertation will assess the cost and health impacts of evidence-based clinical guidelines for advanced medical imaging testing in Washington State for worker compensation claimants. Due to a recent surge in national use of such tests, Washington State legislation dictates that public payers now rely on evidence-based medicine to guide utilization and reimbursement of such technologies. Her dissertation will consider the economic and clinical consequences of such changes.
  • Benjamin Keeney
    Ben came to the University of Washington in 2007 with a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Claremont McKenna College. His dissertation focuses on identifying outcome predictors in a large cohort of Washington State workers with back injuries, including re-injury, changes of BMI status, and accessing surgery. In addition to his dissertation, he currently works with faculty on developing research methods related to BMI measurement and associations between physician demographics and their communication styles with patients. His other academic interests include occupational physician behavior, the workers' compensation administration system, public health and the law, and the history of public health among the working class.
  • Dolly John, PhC, MPH
    Dolly earned her MPH in Community Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. Her doctoral research interests focus on reducing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequities in health care for Asian immigrants. Her dissertation involves an explanatory mixed-methods study to examine how work and immigration-related factors affect the health services use and health of Asian American workers. She possesses significant qualitative and quantitative research experience working on local, state, and national level studies of health and health care of racial/ethnic minority and low-income populations. Recently, she assisted with an evaluation of the access, quality and outcomes of care for injured workers under California's Workers' Compensation System.
  • Sarah Veele-Brice, PhC, MPH
    Sarah earned her MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. Sarah's dissertation research focuses on occupational violence. For one component of her dissertation she conducted secondary analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey to determine historical rates of workplace violence, test for worker related characteristics associated with workplace violence victimization, and to identify trends in workplace violence reporting practices to the police. As a second dissertation project, Sarah designed and implemented a survey of correctional nurses' experiences of physical and non-physical violence in the workplace. Accordingly, she surveyed prison nurses in Washington State and Florida to calculate rates of victimization, identify predictors and deterrents of victimization, and make comparisons between correctional nurses and nurses in other work settings. All manuscripts from these studies will be submitted for publication in peer-review journals before the end of 2009.