School names co-associate deans for research

Professor Jayne Fulkerson, PhD, FNAP, and Professor Renee Sieving, PhD, RN, FAAN, FSAHM, were named co-associate deans for research.

Fulkerson is a psychologist by training, a professor and a McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Nursing. She brings extensive experience in National Institutes of Health-funded research programs focused on measurement, instrument validation and developing and testing family-based obesity prevention programs through randomized controlled trials. 

Her research portfolio focuses on preventing childhood obesity by engaging whole family units in behavior change and by making changes in the home food environment, ensuring measures developed for use in behavioral and health science research are valid and reliable, and promoting health equity in research to promote healthier communities. She serves as the director of the Center for Child and Family Health Promotion Research in the School of Nursing. Her leadership experience in interdisciplinary training and team science includes serving as co-director of Education and Training Programs at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and director of the CTSI’s TRACT TL1 Program and Translational Research Development Program. She is also an affiliate professor in the School of Public Health Epidemiology and Community Health Division. 

Sieving, a Pauline A. Vincent Chair in Public Health Nursing, is a professor in the School of Nursing and adjunct professor in the Department of Pediatrics. She serves as director of the Leadership Education in Adolescent Health Program and director of the Center for Adolescent Nursing.

Her research focuses on the application of a positive youth development paradigm to the design, implementation and evaluation of clinic-based and community-based interventions focused on preventing multiple health risk behaviors during adolescence. She recently served as principal investigator on three substantial programs of community-engaged intervention research: a randomized trial of a clinic-linked intervention focused on reducing risky sexual behaviors, violence involvement, and school failure among adolescent girls at high risk for early pregnancy; formative research and pilot testing of a culturally relevant teen parent program to promote positive development and prevent risky sexual behaviors among Latino youth; and a school-based youth development intervention focused on preventing violence involvement and promoting school success among middle school students from resource-poor urban neighborhoods. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and a fellow of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.