Nursing PhD graduate earns University’s Best Dissertation Award

Kara Koschmann, PhD ’20, was awarded the University of Minnesota Graduate School’s Best Dissertation Award in Social Sciences & Education for 2021. Selections were based on the originality and importance of the research, as well as the potential for the student to make an unusually significant contribution to their field.

Koschmann’s dissertation, Urban, Low-Income, African American Well-Child Care: Parent and Provider Experiences and Expectations, gives a voice to African American families to make known their experiences with well-child care systems. The results also identify practical, evidenced-based ways for health care providers to improve the quality of well-child care for African American families, which will promote improved health outcomes of this population of children. Her findings were published in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing. Her adviser was Associate Professor Casey Hooke.

Koschmann is an associate professor at St. Catherine University.