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The UAB School of Nursing offers a vibrant post-doctoral fellowship program. We tailor the experiences for each individual. Common threads include mentored research experiences with senior scientists and protected time to develop a dynamic and independent program of research.
Post-doctoral funding is available through a variety of sources: individual investigators, Office of Postdoctoral Education (OPE), The VA Quality Scholars and individual federal awards. The VA Quality Scholars also have access to a national network of VA scientists and leaders in improvement and implementation science.
School of Nursing post-doctoral fellows are integrated into the larger UAB Post Doc community through the OPE as well as the University Wide Interdisciplinary Research Centers (UWIRC) and the UAB Clinical Center for Translational Science (CCTS), where they can benefit from courses and programs that range from grant-writing skills to business entrepreneurship opportunities to career enhancement awards.
Post-Doctoral Faculty & Staff
Coordinator, Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program Frank Puga PhD
Research Grants Writer Winston Gu PhD -
Avery Bechthold, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
(2023 UAB SON PhD Graduate)
Cohort: 2020
Funding: UAB School of Nursing, Heilbrunn Nurse Scholar Award, Sigma/HPNF End of Life Nursing Care Research Grant
Mentors: J. Nicholas Odom, PhD Deborah Ejem, PhD Rachel Wells, PhD Marie Bakitas, DNSc
Research Focus: Optimizing value-concordant, co-decision making among patients with advanced heart failure and their family caregivers.
Hope to Accomplish: Gain a comprehensive understanding of how patients with advanced heart failure and their family caregivers discuss, reflect upon, and act on their values together and with the healthcare team to lay the foundation for interventions that promote value-concordant, decision making between patients, their caregivers, and the healthcare team.
Reed Bratches, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education T32
Mentor: J. Nicholas Odom, PhD
Research Focus: Dr. Bratches’ research primarily focuses on family caregivers, particularly how we communicate information from clinic visits to family caregivers. He has experience with the design and conduct of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, surveys, and clinical trials.
Jun Yeong Byun, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
(2023 UAB SON PhD Graduate)
Funding: UAB-MISS MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (U01 HL146192)
Mentor: Mirjam-Colette Kempf, PhD
Research Focus: Health outcomes of people living with HIV and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Hope to Accomplish: My goal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by individuals living with HIV and comorbidities in order to establish a foundation for tailored interventions that improve the overall quality of life for individuals with HIV and comorbidities.
Cheryl A. Elliott-Dawe, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: VA Quality Scholars Program Fellow
Mentor: Patricia Patrician, PhD
Research Focus: Measurement; Development, psychometric evaluation, and validation of instruments; Health systems and perioperative services; Rural access to care
Motivation: Assist healthcare leaders to better understand how perioperative services function; Improve care and access to care for patients
Hope to Accomplish:
Short Term: To validate the Perioperative Synergy Index (PSI) in the VA system.
Long Term: To improve the quality and accessibility of health services.
Courtney Sullivan, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
(2021 UAB SON PhD Graduate)
Funding: Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education T32
Mentors: Patricia Patrician, PhD Wendy Landier, PhD Adelais Markaki, PhD
Research Focus: Nursing-sensitive quality indicators for international pediatric oncology nursing practice utilizing mixed methods approaches; nursing work environments in low-, middle-, and high-income countries.
Motivation: Empowering nurses’ voices internationally, and supporting nurses to reach their potential and lead change within their respective spheres of influence.
Hope to Accomplish: Establish a core set of nursing-sensitive indicators for international pediatric oncology nursing practice to drive quality improvement, comparison, knowledge-sharing, and generate nursing-sensitive outcomes in low-, middle-, and high-income countries
Rebecca Suttle, DNP, RN
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: VA Quality Scholars Program Fellow
Mentor: Patricia Patrician, PhD
Jasmine Vickers, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: R01AG072424 (Pickering, PI)
Mentor: Pariya Wheeler, PhD
Research Focus: Health education and promotion among older adults with cognitive disabilities and their family caregivers.
Jaclyn A. Wall, MD
Post-Doctoral Research
Mentors: Marie Bakitas, DNSc J. Michael Strayghn Jr., MD
Research Focus: Palliative care utilization in gynecologic cancer
Hope to Accomplish: My goal is to expand the utility of specialty palliative care services throughout cancer treatment to improve quality of life for women with gynecologic cancers.
Hong Xiao, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
(2022 UAB SON PhD Graduate)
Funding: School of Nursing Pickering PI
Mentors: Frank Puga, PhD
Research Focus: Investigating the interaction between physical environment (PE) and behavioral symptoms of dementia (BSDs) in the home setting of persons with dementia (PWD).
Motivations: Extending my dissertation work on daily trajectories of BSDs in relation to care activities in nursing homes to a focus on the home setting while providing unique methodological training opportunities from an established Alzheimer’s Dementia Related Disease investigator.
Hope to Accomplish: Deriving a framework of PE-BSD interactive factors for the home setting, which can be applied to inform individualized care planning intervention design to support the transition to home from a care facility and modifications to the home environment to delay institutionalization. The framework also can be used for the adaptation of semi-immersive visual reality environment technology to support the PWD in the home.
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Elizabeth M. Byrd, PhD (2022 - 2023)
Post-Doctoral Research
(2021 UAB SON PhD Graduate)
Funding: VA Quality Scholars Program Fellow
During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Byrd collaborated with the VA Emergency Department to improve outcomes with veterans with an acute ischemic stroke, monitored and reported monthly stroke American Heart Association metrics, participated in root cause analyses, and served with a quality improvement team that improved sepsis-related mortality. She was also awarded an intramural Dean's Scholar Award from the School of Nursing to study the relationship between awareness of hemiplegia and stroke rehabilitation outcomes.
Post-Fellowship Position: Assistant Professor, UAB School of Nursing
Michael Daniel, PhD (2020 – 2022)
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: Cancer Prevention and Control Training Program - T32-CA047888
During his postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Daniel was funded through the highly competitive Cancer Prevention and Control Training Program (CPCTP) to pursue his translational research goal of exploring potential mechanism-targeted nutritional interventions that can alleviate and/or attenuate debilitating cancer treatment-associated side effect like neuropathy and pain.
Post-Fellowship Position: Assistant Professor, UAB School of Nursing
Jacqueline Lambert Davis, DNP (2018 – 2020)
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: VA Quality Scholars Program
Projects:
Improving front line nurses engagement in quality improvement.
Facilitators and barriers to implementing quality improvement.
Caring among undergraduate nursing students.Post-Fellowship Position: Clinician, Birmingham VA Medical Center
Tracey K. Dick, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
(2020 UAB SON PhD Graduate)
Funding: VA Quality Scholars Program Fellow
During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Tracey Dick was appointed to the VA readmissions committee to improve readmission metrics. Her contributions to that committee included completion of a project entitled “Preventing Readmissions: Investigating Veterans’ Perspectives” and conducted a literature review to inform creation of a retrospective chart review template that is currently being piloted by that committee. She continues to work on funded projects for the VA.
Post-Fellowship Position: Assistant Professor, UAB School of Nursing
Deborah Ejem, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health Research - R01 NR013665-01A1, PCORI R-1609-36381, AHRQ HSOER Training Program
During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Ejem received two awards: (1) NINR/NIH-funded Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health Research and (2) the HRSA-funded UAB Health Services, Outcomes, and Effectiveness Research (HSOER) Training Program to explore dyadic relationships and spirituality influences on African Americans with heart failure and caregivers.
Post-Fellowship Position: Assistant Professor, UAB School of Nursing
Shannon S. Layton, DNP (2020 – 2022)
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: VA Quality Scholars Program
Projects:
- VA Care Transitions: Patient Experience at Discharge
- Post Baccalaureate Registered Nurse Residency Accreditation: Curriculum Task Force
- Planning Committee, QSEN 2021 International Conference: January and April Live
- Virtual Mini Cons (Co-chair Planning Committee, Session and Conference Moderator)
- Covid Related Skin Injury Descriptive Study
- UAB Care Transitions: RN Care Manager and Social Work Dyad
- VA Inpatient Quality Improvement: Staff and Patient Experience Observation
- Seven Visits Care Transitions Study
Post-Fellowship Position: Assistant Professor, UAB School of Nursing
Aoyjai P. Montgomery, PhD (2019 – 2021)
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: Veterans Center for the Advancement of Nursing
During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Montgomery received an award from the Versant Center for the Advancement of Nursing (VCAN) through the Association for Leadership Science in Nursing (ALSN) to investigate the presence of COVID-related stressors, burnout, turnover intention, and resilience among nurse leaders in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis in Birmingham and surrounding hospitals and to explore strategies that nurse leaders are using during this pandemic to maintain resiliency.
She also received multiple sources of funding as a data analyst including (1) TriService Nursing Research Program Grant A, (2) Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), and (3) National Cancer Institute (NCI). In 2022, Dr. Montgomery received the 2021 Impact Article of the Year Award from National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ).
Post-Fellowship Position: Scientist, UAB School of Public Health (Epidemiology)
Nick Odom, PhD (2014 – 2018)
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: NCI R25CA047888 (2014-2015), National Palliative Care Research Center (2015-2016), NINR K99NR015903 (2016-18)
During his postdoctoral fellowship, he received a five-year, $935,000 K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) to develop a palliative care health coaching program for family caregivers of persons with advanced cancer.
The award supports post-doctoral fellows in research and is designed to provide a career pathway for them to move from a mentored postdoctoral position to an independent tenure-track faculty position. In 2020, Dr. Odom received FNINR Protege Award.
Post-Fellowship Position: Associate Professor, UAB School of Nursing
Rachel Wells, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: NIH/NINR Pathway to Independence K99R019854
My post-doctoral fellowship focused on models of early palliative care for those living with serious illness. Despite research supporting palliative care-HF care integration, there is limited evidence examining which intervention components optimally influence outcomes. Using the Multiphase Optimization STrategy (MOST) framework, my K99 fellowship involved a pilot trial to identify components that will achieve the greatest QoL benefits for HF patients. The overall goal during the R00 phase is to conduct an optimization pilot using a 2x2x2x2 factorial design to assess acceptability, feasibility, and potential efficacy of the newly refined early palliative care, lay navigator-led UPHOLDS intervention components on quality of life (primary outcome) at 12- and 24- weeks after baseline.
Post-Fellowship Position: Assistant Professor, UAB School of Nursing
Jenni Wise, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research
Funding: K12 HL143858 (National Heart Lung and Blood Institute)
During her postdoctoral fellowship, she received a two-year, $200,000 K12 award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to examine the environmental, interpersonal, and individual level factors associated with cardiovascular disease risk among women living with HIV.
The award supports early career investigators to receive the mentorship, training, and research support needed to transition from a mentored position to an independent scientist in the field of HIV and cardiovascular health.
Post-Fellowship Position: Assistant Professor, UAB School of Nursing
