Christiaan Abildso, PhD, MPH, is an assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavior Sciences. He earned his
PhD in Kinesiology (Sport and Exercise Psychology concentration) and MPH from West Virginia University, an EdM in
Counseling (sport psychology concentration) from Boston University, and an undergraduate degree in Business and
Economics from McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College). Dr. Abildso’s research interests include health promotion program evaluation and social ecological determinants of physical activity, including policy and the built environment. Current research projects for which data are being or will be collected that could include a RRCP student in
Spring 2016 and/or Fall 2016 include: 1) The “SMART” (Smartphone Mediated Activity Response Trial) Pilot Study to test the feasibility and impact of a theory-based smartphone application in reducing sitting time. SPRING 2016 ONLY; 2)
Evaluating a WV DHHR project to assess the impact of integrating domestic violence training into the statewide Home
Visitation Program. SPRING & FALL 2016; 3) Evaluating a WV DHHR project to increase access to preventive oral health services to low-income mothers and their children in West Virginia. SPRING & FALL 2016; 4) Morgantown pedestrian safety survey data analysis (data are collected, awaiting analysis & publication; roughly 400 completed surveys.
Additionally, 2 projects that are still in the idea phase: 1) Exploring the potential association of exposure to crumb rubber sports fields and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (epidemiological study) and 2) Developing a comprehensive local physical activity plan for Fayette County WV (community-based, participatory planning/research)
Dr. Christiann Abildso, PhD, MPH
Interim Director, Health Research Center
Assistant Professor, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
WVU School of Public Health
Dr. Thomas K. Bias, PhD
Interim Director, Health Research Center
Assistant Professor, Health Policy, Management and Leadership
WVU School of Public Health
Dr. Bias performs policy analysis and evaluation on a number of rural health issues including insurance and access to care, health impact assessment, the intersection of community development and public health, and behavioral health/substance abuse. His work focuses on involving state policymakers and stakeholders in the policy evaluation process in order to emphasize positive health outcomes through legislation and regulation. Students working with Dr.
Bias could expect to work directly with state or local stakeholders to help solve policy and environmental issues impacting health within local communities in West Virginia and surrounding states.
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 1

Dr. Jorge Con, MD
Assistant Professor
WVU School of Medicine, Department of Surgery
Dr. Con is an Assistant Professor in Surgery specializing in general, trauma, and emergency surgery. Dr. Con’s research interests span trauma outcomes research and he is currently working on the following projects: 1) Forced Vital Capacity
(FVC) can predict hospital disposition in patients with isolated rib fractures : Traditionally rib fractures have been managed by providing pain control and encouraging respiratory hygiene (deep breathing and coughing). Where these patients receive their treatment (Intensive Care Unit, Stepdown Unit, Floor, Home) depends on mostly clinical judgement. Here at WVU we utilize FVC to aid in this clinical decision making. This study would look into how well FVC predicts where patients go based on clinical outcomes such as hospital length of stay and unanticipated upgrades in level of care; 2) Use of Technology to decrease costs and increase efficiency in Trauma Patients Transferred to a Level 1
Trauma Center : Transfer patients often arrive with incomplete documentation. As a result, imaging studies are often repeated unnecessarily, particularly in emergency situations like trauma transfers. Here at WVU se have developed and currently utilize a piece of software that facilitates the transfer of imaging studies. We look to study how the utilization of this technology results in quicker ED disposition and lower costs. 3) Comfort level of Rural Practitioners at Level 3 and
Level 4 Trauma centers in managing mild brain, spine, and hand injuries : We have previously shown that rural hospitals overtriage certain trauma patients, particularly those who have mild traumatic brain injuries, spine injuries, and hand injuries. These injuries often require the evaluation of a specialist, who may not be available at rural hospitals. Determining the urgency with which patients with these injuries need to be transferred could increase efficiency in the system overall. We look to study whether there are differences in the comfort level between various practitioners (Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Family Practitioners, Emergency Physicians, Surgeons.) who provide initial care at Level 3 and Level 4 trauma centers in the state.
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 2

Dr. Lesley Cottrell, PhD
Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Pediatrics
WVU School of Medicine
Joint Faculty Member, Department of Social and Behavioral Health
WVU School of Public Health
Co-Director, Prevention Research Center
Interim Director, WV Center for Excellence in Disabilities
Dr. Lesley Cottrell is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the WVU School of Medicine. Her doctorate is in
Developmental Psychology. Her training included an NIDA-funded doctoral project examining parental monitoring and adolescent risk behaviors including substance use and unprotected sexual risk. She is a Co-Principal Investigator for the
WVU Prevention Research Center and the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pediatrics. She is also the
Interim Director of the WV Center for Excellence in Disabilities. Her current research interests examine parental influences on child and adolescent health risk decision-making and behaviors. She is the Principal Investigator for the
Marion County, WV location of the National Children's Study and a co-investigator on an AFRI-funded grant examining the impact of obesity on preschool children. Additionally, Dr. Cottrell is interested in integrated medicine. She is a Co-
Investigator on the State Innovation Model Design Award WV received last year. She also serves as the Co-Chair of the
WV Health Innovation Collaborative’s Better Health Workgroup.
Dr. Danielle Davidov, PhD
Assistant Professor
WVU School of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine
WVU School of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Danielle Davidov, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and has a secondary appointment within the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health. Dr. Davidov’s research focuses primarily on intimate partner and sexual violence and she uses qualitative and mixed methods to conduct formative and process evaluations of violence prevention and intervention programs. She is interested in discovering ways to effectively translate evidence-based violence programs into rural, Appalachian populations. She is involved with several projects that would benefit from student support: 1) a statewide evaluation of the ways in which intimate partner violence is managed in West Virginia’s home visitation program, 2) a CDC-funded study exploring factors related to adoption and implementation of bystander programs for sexual and interpersonal violence on college campuses, and 3) a translational study exploring the adoption of the Green Dot sexual violence prevention program in
Kentucky high schools and 4) a patient-centered project that focuses on patient preferences for screening for intimate partner violence in healthcare settings. Additionally, she frequently works with existing healthcare data to examine demographic and clinical features of emergency department visits and hospitalizations related to various forms of violence.
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 3

Dr. Chris Haddox, PhD
Assistant Professor – Sustainable Design
Division of Design & Merchandising
WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources & Design
Dr. Haddox’s research is in the field of Evidence-Based Design (EBD). EBD explores the connections between the physical design of the health care setting and the actual delivery of health care. In other words, how does the treatment space affect the delivery of health care? Dr. Haddox is currently working with one rural health system in southern WV to examine how patients perceive the quality of health care and the accessibility of health care in relation to the physical facility. He has another project that is gathering perspectives of special needs populations on barriers to health care access as related to the physical facility. He is interested in using these preliminary qualitative findings to develop a survey tool that can be used across WV and Appalachia to identify and quantify physical design elements that are of importance in rural ambulatory health care settings and using that data to inform the design of both existing and new facilities in order to allow for improved patient, staff and fiscal outcomes.
Dr. Treah Haggerty, MD
Assistant Professor
WVU School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine
Treah Haggerty, MD is a Family Physician for the WVU Department of Family Medicine. She completed her Bachelors of
Science in 2003 and her Medical Degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine in 2007. She completed a family medicine residency at West Virginia University Department of Family Medicine in 2010. Her research has focused on programs addressing health disparities in rural West Virginia. Students working with Dr. Haggerty will collaborate with the West Virginia Health Sciences and Technology Academy (HSTA) and use the health belief model to examine barriers to why high school students do not get the flu vaccination.
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 4

Dr. Kimberly Kelly, PhD, MS
Associate Professor
WVU School of Pharmacy, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy
Associate Professor, Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center
Dr. Kimberly Kelly is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy in the School of
Pharmacy and the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center. She received her MS (1998) and PhD (2000) in social and health psychology from Rutgers University, her MS (2002) in genetic counseling from Indiana University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer control and behavioral science at the University of Kentucky (2002-2004). Before joining
West Virginia University, Dr. Kelly was a member of the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology, and Medical
Genetics, and was also affiliated with the Department of Psychology, Health Behavior and Health Promotion in the
College of Public Health, the Primary Care Research Institute, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center at The Ohio State
University. Three overlapping themes emerge from Dr. Kelly’s research: (1) cancer risk perception/communication, (2) health behavior (e.g., cancer screening, genetic testing), and (3) elevated risk populations (e.g., Appalachians, those with a family history of cancer). Her work relies on behavioral theory from psychology (health, social, cognitive), as well as communication and information sciences. She mixes qualitative and quantitative methods, utilizing clinic-based and community-based approaches. Most of her research has focused on how risk is communicated in the context of cancer genetic counseling and how risk perceptions differ from objective estimates of risk. She also examines the role of risk perception in cancer screening. Through her research, Dr. Kelly hopes to understand how best to enhance appropriate decision-making about health behaviors in elevated risk populations to accomplish optimal health outcomes. Interested students are encouraged to review some of her work at http://pharmacy.hsc.wvu.edu/about-the-sop/facultystaff/?UserID=33601
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 5

Dr. Linda Nield, MD
Assistant Dean for Admissions
Professor
Departments of Pediatrics and Medical Education
WVU School of Medicine
Linda S. Nield, MD is a Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medical Education and the Assistant Dean for
Admissions. Dr. Nield has been on faculty at WVU School of Medicine since completing her residency in 1993. A native of
Rhode Island, she is a 1986 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and a 1990 graduate of Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dr. Nield was the Pediatrics Residency Program Director from 2010-2015; in that role she provided leadership to the Department including overseeing the residency recruitment process, educational curriculum and clinical experiences. She has also served as Chair or a member of multiple departmental and graduate medical education (GME) committees, including the Pediatrics Program Evaluation
Committee and the GME Health Care Disparities Committee. On the state level, Dr. Nield is the Chair of the Medical
Student and Resident Section of the WV American Academy of Pediatrics, and on the national level, she has been an active reviewer for the AAMC’s MedEDPortal and has numerous professional publications. Dr. Nield is a member of the
Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and a past recipient of the David Z. Morgan Mentor Award. Dr. Nield’s research interests lie in the field of medical education and ambulatory Pediatrics. Her quality improvement projects have focused on raising physicians’ awareness about health disparities. She has more than two decades of experience with mentoring medical students and residents, especially with career planning, board preparation and the process of writing for the clinical literature, particularly case reports.
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 6

Dr. Toni M. Rudisill, PhD
Epidemiologist
Injury Control Research Center
WVU School of Public Health
Dr. Rudisill is an Epidemiologist at the West Virginia University Injury Control Research Center. Her current research interests involve the relationship between injury prevention and control and traffic/pedestrian safety, rural health and health disparities. She also has an interest in prescription drug use and their effects in populations, particularly the elderly. She is currently working with Dr. Motao Zhu on four separate research grants pertaining to traffic safety 1) cell phone law effectiveness in young drivers 2) a randomized trial to test the efficacy of a cell phone application for reducing cell phone use among college age drivers 3) disparities in cell phone law effectiveness in populations subgroups and geographic regions and 4) the effectiveness of licensing laws for older adult drivers.
Dr. Steven Wheeler, PhD, OTR/L, CBIS
Associate Professor and Associate Chair
Division of Occupational Therapy – Human Performance
WVU School of Medicine
Dr. Wheeler is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Occupational Therapy at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. Dr. Wheeler has published as well as presented both nationally and internationally on community re-entry issues following TBI. He is also currently co-authoring the Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines for Adults with
Traumatic Brain Injury , a project being completed in collaboration with the American Occupational Therapy Association.
Dr. Wheeler received his Ph.D. with a specialty in occupational therapy from Virginia Commonwealth University; his dissertation topic was Community Participation and Life Satisfaction following Intensive Community Based Rehabilitation using a Life Skills Training Approach.
He serves as a consultant with NeuroRestorative, a leading provider of post-acute rehabilitation services for people with brain and spinal cord injuries and other neurological challenges, and is a
Governors Appointee on the West Virginia TBI Rehabilitation Fund Board. Current research projects include: 1) Factors associated with life satisfaction among family caregivers of individuals with traumatic brain injury and 2) community participation following severe traumatic brain injury. Both projects are being conducted in collaboration with the WVU
Center for Excellence in Disabilities.
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 7

Dr. Sam Zizzi, EdD, MA
Professor, Sport and Exercise Psychology
College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences
Adjunct Professor, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
School of Public Health
West Virginia University
Dr. Zizzi, a WV native, has a strong interest in improving the health of those living in WV's communities. His work focuses on health behavior change, primarily related to physical activity promotion and obesity prevention. He has experience doing church and school-based interventions, and since 2008, he has served as the principal investigator on a contract with West Virginia’s largest public insurance agency to coordinate the state’s largest weight loss program. This community-based, insurance-funded program provides low-cost fitness center access to thousands of WV citizens and pairs this access with services from fitness and nutrition professionals. This innovative lifestyle change program is available at approximately 70 fitness facilities in 30 WV counties, and enrolls 100 participants every month. Many of these facilities lie in WV's most rural areas. Zizzi and his colleagues have authored numerous reports and manuscripts on this program’s development and its outcomes. Interested students are encouraged to review some of their work at http://healthperformance.wordpress.com and may contact Dr. Zizzi at 304-293-0874 or visiting his office in Room 206 of the Health and Education Building.
Research Descriptions 2015-2016 RRCP 8