Research > Grandmother Study > Investigators and Contacts

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Investigators and Contacts

Investigators

Carol M. Musil, RN, PhD, FAAN
Principal Investigator

Carol Musil, RN, PhD, FAAN is an Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve University’s Bolton School of Nursing. She is the Principal Investigator for “The Grandmother Study” formally known as “ Intergenerational Caregiving to Youth” and “Grandmothers, Caregiving, Families and Transitions.” Dr. Musil has studied the relationship between stress and health in middle age and older adults, and in grandmothers according to their caregiving to grandchildren. Her current research examines the physical and psychological health of grandmothers, including grandmothers raising grandchildren, grandmothers living in multigenerational homes, and grandmothers who do not live with grandchildren, with a special focus on how grandmothers’ involvement affects the well-being of the family. In this continuation phase of “The Grandmother Study,” she and the research team will also be talking with grandchildren to examine the give and take between the grandmother and her grandchildren. Dr. Musil has published many articles and book chapters about the stress and health of grandmothers and older adults. Dr. Musil’s research in this area has been funded through a Research Initiation Grant from the State of Ohio, the American Nurses’ Foundation, and by the National Institute of Nursing Research and the National Institute of Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

May L. Wykle, RN, PhD, FAAN
Co-Investigator

May L. Wykle, RN, PhD, FAAN, Dean of the FPB School of Nursing, Denekas Chair and Professor, and Director of the University Center on Aging and Health. Dr. Wykle is a Co-Investigator on The Grandmother Study. She has completed extensive research projects in areas such as geriatric mental health, family caregiving, minority caregivers, self-care and promotion of the health of elderly adults and their caregivers, and caring for patients with dementia. She has initiated educational programs internationally in Europe, Africa and Asia. Dr. Wykle’s work focuses on reducing the adverse effects of stress on health and improving caregiver health, well-being, and self care practices. She has a particular interest in minority elders and their families. Dr. Wykle has received numerous honors and awards for her exceptional achievements in teaching, research and scholarly service. She is recognized nationally as an expert in the field of aging adults and has written numerous books, articles, and book chapters on health and aging-related topics. Dr. Wykle’s prior research has been funded by the National Institute of Aging.

Theresa S. Standing, RN, PhD
Co-Investigator

Dr. Standing is currently an Assistant Professor at the FPB School of Nursing. She is a Co-Investigator for The Grandmother Study. Dr. Standing uses qualitative approaches, most often personal interviews, and in the past has focused most of her work in two areas: women’s health, and delegation in nursing practice. Specifically, she has researched how women are supported through menopause and also, how women experience the transition to the empty nest. In addition, Dr. Standing continues to examine nurses’ delegation of tasks to unlicensed assistive personnel. In The Grandmother Study, Dr. Standing has focused on grandmothers who have experienced changes in caregiving as their household composition has changed. In the continuing phase of the study she will be learning about these transitions from the perspective of the grandchildren. She has been funded by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing and the American Nurses Foundation.

Jaclene A. Zauszniewski, RN-BC, PhD, FAAN
Co-Investigator

Jaclene A. Zauszniewski, RN-BC, PhD, FAAN, Kate Hanna Harvey Professor of Community Health Nursing, Associate Dean for Doctoral Education, and Co-Investigator for The Grandmother Study, focuses her program of research on the examination of “personal and social resourcefulness” as strategies for improving health and well-being across the lifespan. Her research activities focus on psychological health-seeking behaviors such as resourcefulness to help promote healthy, adaptive functioning in middle aged and older adults including family caregivers and those with depression and other chronic conditions. To date, her research has demonstrated the effectiveness of teaching resourcefulness skills to chronically ill elders in retirement communities. She is currently examining resourcefulness and quality of life in family members of seriously mentally ill adults, caregivers of elders with dementia, and chronically ill elders in the community and assisted living facilities. She is pursuing funding for extending her research with family caregivers, chronically ill elders, and grandmothers raising grandchildren to test an innovative intervention for teaching them to be resourceful in managing their day-to-day responsibilities and stressors while remaining as healthy as possible. Her work has been funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Nursing Research.

Camille Beckette Warner, PhD
Co-Investigator

Camille Warner is an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University’s Bolton School of Nursing. Dr. Warner is a co-investigator for The Grandmother Study. Additionally, she is a faculty member on the Prentiss Care Networks Project to provide educational training to formal and informal caregivers and their care recipients in the community. Her research interests include caregiving, the self-care practices of elderly adults, with a special focus on race and ethnicity issues, and inequality in health care. She has been an invited guest lecturer on the topics of aging, caregiving, and research methods and conducted workshops on cultural diversity in university and health care settings. Dr.Warner has made numerous scientific presentations and co-authored several articles on aging, medical sociology, and research methodology.

Nahida H. Gordon, PhD
Co-Investigator

Dr. Gordon is a Professor of Biostatistics at the School of Nursing and in the Department of Bioethics, School of Medicine. Her research involves survival analysis methodologies, with emphasis on using mixture distributions to analyze data where there are significant competing risks of mortality. The aim of this research is to estimate of the long-term effects (in terms of comorbidities) of adjuvant therapy on long-term survival. Given the modest benefit of adjuvant treatment, these estimates are highly relevant to treatment decision- making. This research will allow patients and their physicians to balance the risks and benefits of adjuvant therapy as functions of the patient’s characteristics. She also publishes on the relationship of race/ethnicity and social class and overall survival after primary breast cancer diagnosis. As a collaborating statistician in the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, Dr. Gordon is involved in numerous research activities and has been and is presently funded on numerous grants. Her educational interests are curriculum development in biostatistics.

Mark I. Singer, PhD
Co-Investigator

Dr. Singer is a Leonard W. Mayo Professor in Family and Child Welfare at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University . He is currently the director of the Dual Disorders Research Program and co-director of the Center on Substance Abuse and Mental Illness. Dr. Singer was awarded a National Institute of Mental Health fellowship in 1977-1978, a National Research Service Award in 1980-1981 through the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, and a National Institute of Drug Abuse Faculty Fellowship in 1990-1993. He was the 2000 recipient of the Susanne Brookhart Harison Award for Exceptional Service to Children. Dr. Singer served as a consultant or advisor to the American Medical Association, the National Mental Health Association and the U.S. Department of Defense. He has lectured nationally and internationally on issues related to youth violence, drug use and mental illness and has presented finding from his research to governmental groups such as the National Governors’ Association and the Ohio State Cabinet. Dr. Singer has published two books and numerous articles on the subjects of violence/victimization, drug use and mental illness.

YurkiwProject Manager

Dorothy Yurkiw, MA

Dorothy has joined the Grandmother study as Project Manager. She earned her master’s degree in the area of experimental psychology, with an emphasis in substance abuse research. She has worked with individuals with schizophrenia as well as other mental disorders.

 

Student Investigator

Carolyn Harmon, MSN, ANP, APRN, BC

Carolyn is a PhD nursing student and recipient of a GAANN fellowship. Her research interests include aging and the disease process and management of diabetes in older adults.