Marilyn Rantz, PhD, RN, FAAN

University of Missouri
Curators' Professor & Helen E. Nahm Chair, MU Sinclair School of Nursing
University Hospitals and Clinics Professor of Nursing
Executive Director, Aging In Place Project at TigerPlace
Associate Director, MU Interdisciplinary Center on Aging

Dr. Marilyn Rantz has developed and sustained a research program to improve quality of care of older people. Her pioneering work in nursing home care quality which spans nearly thirty years has generated over 230 publications including books, book chapters, and journal articles. First in practice then as a leading researcher in the Midwest, she has become established as a premier international expert in quality measurement in nursing homes. In 1993, she formed the MU MDS and Quality Research Team as an interdisciplinary research team devoted to improving the quality of care for older people in long-term care nursing facilities. Under Dr. Rantz's leadership, the research team comprised of faculty from the schools/departments of Nursing, Medicine, Health Professions, Social Work, Physical Therapy, Engineering, Health Management and Informatics, and Biostatistics has become a nationally and internationally known group of experts in long-term nursing care quality improvement, as they have garnered more than $30 million in research funds to support work measuring effectiveness of nurse care coordination, developing new technologies to help seniors age in place in their own homes, as well as on-going nursing home research.

Marjorie Skubic, PhD

University of Missouri
Lapierre Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Director, Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology

Dr. Marjorie Skubic is currently a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department with a joint appointment in Computer Science. Dr. Skubic has over 100 publications and has received funding by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Administration on Aging, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the Naval Research Lab, and the U.S. Army. In addition to her academic experience, she has spent 14 years working in industry on real-time applications such as data acquisition and automation. Her current research interests include sensory perception, computational intelligence, spatial referencing interfaces, human-robot interaction, and sensor networks for eldercare. In 2006, Dr. Skubic established the Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology (CERT) at the University of Missouri and serves as the Center Director for this interdisciplinary team. The focus of the center's work includes monitoring systems for tracking the physical and cognitive health of elderly residents in their homes, logging sensor data in an accessible database, extracting activity and gait patterns, identifying changes in patterns, and logging alerts that flag possible adverse health conditions.

Carmen Abbott, PhD, PT

University of Missouri
Clinical Associate Professor, School of Health Professions, Physical Therapy

Dr. Carmen Abbott is a Clinical Associate Professor in the MU Department of Physical Therapy. She has been a Physical Therapist for 36 years, practicing in neurological rehabilitation, cardiac rehabilitation, and spine rehabilitation for 19 years. She currently specializes in vestibular rehabilitation. She is the co-director of the University of Missouri Four Winds Learning Community and on the executive leadership team for the Show Me Falls Free Missouri. Dr. Abbott has been an active member of the Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology where she provides consultation on physical performance and gait issues.

Katherine Aguilar, BS, MHA, RN, LNHA

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator/Consultant, QIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

Katherine Aguilar is a Clinical Educator in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing and a member of QIPMO, providing clinical consultation and education based upon evidence based practices. She is a Quality Educator for Dr. Rantz's contract with the Missouri QIO (Primaris Healthcare) to educate nursing facilities on quality measures for improvement. Katherine has over 20 years of experience with the geriatric population in skilled nursing facilities, both clinically and administratively. She holds degrees from Columbia College and Bellevue University and has held positions in the LTC setting as Staff Nurse, MDS Coordinator, Director of Nursing Services, Licensed Nursing Home Administrator, Vice President of Operations and a Corporate Quality Assurance Nurse Consultant. Katherine is also a member of the statewide MU MDS Quality and Research Team. Her professional affiliations include the American Nursing Association (ANA), Missouri Nurses Association (MONA), and Missouri League of Nursing (MLN). She is a member of the American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordinators (AANAC) and holds certifications as Resident Assessment Coordinator (RAC-CT) and is a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant (CLNC). She has also completed the Parish Nurse (PN) program.

Vicki Conn, PhD, RN, FAAN

University of Missouri
Associate Dean & Potter Brinton Professor, Sinclair School of Nursing

Dr. Vicki Conn has a sustained productive record of research addressing exercise behavior and medication self-management. She has conducted multiple NIH R01 funded meta-analyses of exercise behavior change interventions among aging, healthy, and chronically ill adults. The moderator findings of her analyses of exercise change interventions have provided dramatic evidence regarding the most effective interventions to increase physical activity. Dr. Conn also conducts primary and meta-analysis research on medication management and medication adherence. She leads an established team of international experts in health behavior change and meta-analysis methods. In addition to her substantive work, Dr. Conn published methodological papers to advance meta-analysis research practice. Dr. Conn's over 100 published papers have appeared in well-known journals such as The Gerontologist, Diabetologia, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, International Journal of Cardiology, etc.

Marcia Flesner, PhD, RN

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator, Sinclair School of Nursing

Dr. Flesner is a Clinical Educator at the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri-Columbia working with Marilyn Rantz in federal-funded research projects related to quality of care and life in nursing homes. Her past experiences have been in hospital and long-term care administration, regulatory practices of nurses in Missouri, and the role of the nurse practitioner in rural settings. Recent research has addressed implementing Person Centered Care in the long-term care setting. She currently is the Project Coordinator for a NIH-funded 5-year grant titled "Multilevel Intervention to Improve Nursing Home Outcomes" under the direction of Dr. Rantz at the Sinclair School of Nursing. She is a co-author of the book Person Centered Care: A Model for Nursing Homes published by the American Nurses Association.

Richard Madsen, PhD

University of Missouri
Adjunct Professor, Medical Research Office

Richard Madsen is a statistician with extensive experience consulting with faculty and graduate students in many disciplines, especially in the medical area. He received his PhD from Iowa State University in 1971 and has been a faculty member in the Department of Statistics since that time. His present position is Emeritus Professor. He has taught or consulted internationally under the Fulbright program and exchange programs in Malawi, South Africa, South Korea, and Thailand. Early research publications were theoretically oriented and appeared in journals such as the Annals of Mathematical Statistics, the Annals of Probability, and the Journal of the American Statistical Association. Since the mid-1980's he has consulted with persons from the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, as well as from other areas. He has been included as co-author on over 60 applied publications.

Judith Miller, PhD, RN, FAAN

University of Missouri
Dean, Sinclair School of Nursing

Judith Fitzgerald Miller, PhD, RN, FAAN, has been Dean and Professor at the Sinclair School of Nursing since August, 2008. She is a Fellow in the University of Missouri's Interdisciplinary Center on Aging. Her research and publications focus on psychosocial responses to and coping with chronic health problems. The Miller Hope Scale she developed has been used throughout the world. Her select studies related to aging include: "Strategies to Inspire Hope," "Coping with Chronic Illness," "Arts Interventions in Persons with Dementia" and "Spouse Response to and Management of Aggression in their Mates with Dementia." Among her publications is an award-winning book (three editions), Coping with Chronic Illness: Overcoming Powerlessness. Federal program development funding has been obtained for developing PhD programs, Gerontology Master's Programs, and Nurse Faculty Loan Programs as examples. She has been funded by NIH, HRSA, US Department of Education, American Nurses' Foundation, Alzheimer's Association, Bader Foundation, National League for Nursing, and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Dr. Miller provides leadership within the School and University. Her national committee involvement also influences shaping the discipline of nursing.

Steven Miller

University of Missouri
Database Administrator, Sinclair School of Nursing

Steve Miller is an Administrative/Research Manager who has been with the University of Missouri for 12 years; 10 years in the School of Nursing. He has expertise and extensive experience managing grants and contracts focused on geriatric research. Mr. Miller has 5 years of experience administrating contracts, over 6 years of experience managing multi-year research grants, and also has real-world health care experience managing the University of Missouri's home health agency for over two years. He is currently managing two research grants focused on using technology, such as motion and fall sensors, to provide assistance to elders who wish to remain in their own homes. In addition, he is managing the Aging in Place program at TigerPlace.

Jessica Mueller

University of Missouri
Project Coordinator, Sinclair School of Nursing

Jessica Mueller has been a Project Coordinator to Dr. Rantz for over 5 years, where she provides managerial, administrative, technical, and conceptual design support to complete research grant goals, focusing on quality improvement in the care of the elderly. She manages the fiscal aspects of Dr. Rantz's grants and assumes day-to-day organizational duties of the research. She also manages the coordination of Dr. Rantz's statewide QIPMO program.

Katy Nguyen, MSN, RN

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator/Consultant, QIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

Katy Nguyen is a Clinical Consultant Nurse with the University of Missouri's Sinclair School of Nursing. She is the regional QIPMO nurse in the Kansas City and Northwest MO areas, providing education and trainings on the quality of care and best practices for long-term care nursing staff. Katy is involved in other studies under Dr. Rantz's supervision for improving the quality of care for older people in long-term care facilities. She also participates in the development of a nationwide Center for Nursing Excellence in Long-Term Care with the honor society of nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. She has been recognized with the Research Utilization award from Sigma Theta Tau. Katy provides consultation in management and leadership, legal matters, risk management, and quality care issues. In addition, she is a Quality Educator for Dr. Rantz's contract with the Missouri QIO (Primaris Healthcare) to educate nursing facilities on quality measures for improvement.

Mihail Popescu, PhD

University of Missouri
Assistant Professor, Health Management and Informatics

Mihail Popescu is an Assistant Professor in the University of Missouri Informatics Institute. He obtained his BS degree in Nuclear Engineering in 1987 from the Polytechnic Institute, Bucharest, Romania. He received an MS in Medical Physics in1995, an MS in Electrical Engineering in 1997, and a PhD in Computer Science in 2003, all from the University of Missouri, Columbia. During 1990-1993, he was an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute, Bucharest, Romania. He is a senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

Carol Siem, MSN, RN, BC, GNP

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator/Consultant, QIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

Carol Siem, MSN, RN, BC, GNP is a Clinical Educator at MU Sinclair School of Nursing and a Quality Educator with Primaris Healthcare. She provides clinical consultation to Missouri nursing homes and has more than 16 years experience with the geriatric population in either hospital-based skilled nursing facilities or acute rehabilitation units. She is a member of MU MDS Quality and Research Team and has worked for the Sinclair School of Nursing for 9 years providing consultation to nursing homes. At the national level, Carol is a past Chairman of the Board of the American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordinators (AANAC), which represents over 16,000 members working in long-term care. She has also served as a member of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) workgroup on Resident Assessment Protocols (RAPs) for MDS 3.0. In 2009, she was on the Technical Expert Panel meeting for the development of new publicly-reported nursing home quality measures.

Ruth Anderson, PhD, RN, FAAN

Duke University
Professor, School of Nursing

Dr. Anderson is a Virginia Stone Professor of Nursing and Senior Fellow in the Duke University Center for Aging and Human Development. She earned her PhD in nursing from The University of Texas at Austin. Her scholarship is dedicated to improving management of nursing homes, an area of rapidly growing need. Her research has been interdisciplinary from its inception, and she has collaborated with scholars at Duke and across the country in schools of nursing, business, economics, engineering and medicine. She pioneered the application of complexity theory and management science in nursing in analysis of the institutional environment of the nursing home. Her studies of organizational structure, interpersonal relationships of staff and families, employee turnover and job satisfaction, and patterns of staff communication have given researchers new tools for implementing evidence-based changes in the care delivery practices in long term care facilities. Dr. Anderson's research highlights the key role of interpersonal relationships in nursing home management, leading to a better understanding of how changes in management practices can improve relationship quality and increase staff retention while improving quality of life, health care, and health outcomes for older adults in long-term care facilities.

Myra Aud, PhD, RN, NHA

University of Missouri
Associate Professor, Sinclair School of Nursing

Building on her extensive experience as a gerontological nurses, the focus of Dr. Aud's program of research is the promotion of health and safety of older adults in institutional long-term care: nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Because many older adults in institutional long-term care have diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, dementia and care of older adults in dementia-specific special care units are also part of her program of research. At the same time, recognizing that older adults prefer to remain at home and avoid relocation to institutional settings, she is deeply involved in Sinclair School of Nursing's Aging in Place project and the interdisciplinary research team. The interdisciplinary team investigates technologies to detect variations in activities suggestive of changes in health status.

Richelle Koopman, MD, MS

University of Missouri
Assistant Professor, Family and Community Medicine

Dr. Koopman did her fellowship with Academic Family Medicine Fellowship: Medical University of South Carolina. She did her residency at St. Margaret Memorial Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She is board certified in Family Medicine where her clinical interests are in Type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome. Her research interests are patient use of online health resources and communication, detection of Type 2 diabetes, and pre-diabetes states, health information technology, quality improvement, and risk assessment.

Meridean Maas, PhD, RN, FAAN

University of Iowa
Professor Emeritus, College of Nursing

Dr. Maas received her doctorate in Sociology of Organizations from Iowa State University in 1979 and joined The University of Iowa faculty in 1983. Prior to joining the faculty, she held a number of positions in hospitals and long-term care, including administrative and clinical practice roles. Dr. Maas' areas of scholarship and teaching are Nursing Administration and Gerontological Nursing. Her funded programs of research include: testing the effects of a Family Involvement in Care intervention on family members of institutionalized Alzheimer's patients, staff caregivers, and persons with AD, and Nursing Outcomes Classification research to develop, classify and validate patient outcomes that are sensitive to nursing interventions. Dr. Maas is currently conducting research with electronic clinical data, including standardized nursing data, to assess the cost effectiveness of nursing interventions on outcomes for older persons hospitalized with congestive heart failure and pneumonia. She is the Co-Director of the John A. Hartford Center for Geriatric Nursing Excellence, Co-Principal Investigator of the Iowa Geriatric Education Center grant funded by HRSA, Co-Director of the Gerontological Nursing Interventions Research Center (GNIRC) and Director of its Regional Research Training Core. In recent years, Dr. Maas and colleague Dr. Janet Specht have developed entrepreneurial projects to provide needed nurse managed LTC options for elders.

David Mehr, MD, MS

University of Missouri
Professor, Family and Community Medicine

Dr. Mehr did his fellowship with Geriatric Medicine at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He did his residency at University of Missouri Health Care. He is board certified in Family Medicine and Geriatrics which are also his clinical. His research interests include improving chronic disease care, infections in nursing home residents, preventive services, and quality of care in nursing homes. His recent scholarly project is Using HIT to Improve Ambulatory Chronic Disease Care.

Clara Boland, PhD, RN

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator/Consultant, QIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

Dr. Clara Boland has practiced as a clinical consultant, educator, and research nurse with QIPMO through the University of Missouri Sinclair school of Nursing since 2001. She completed a PhD in Nursing and Gerontology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1999. She has over 45 years experience in clinical practice, as a C-V Clinical Nurse Specialist, nursing education, research, and as an independent consultant in Gerontological Nursing for community agencies and for nursing homes in other states. Dr. Boland has consulted with health care organizations throughout the United States and Canada in areas of quality improvement and served as an evaluator for CMS's Pilot Nursing Home Quality Initiative Project. She has published and presented both nationally and internationally on topics pertaining to needs of the older adult and the Resident Assessment (RAI) process. Her professional memberships include Sigma Theta Tau, Phi Kappa Phi, and the Southern Nursing Research Society (SNRS). She is on the Board of Directors of the Missouri League for Nursing. Dr Boland also contributes as a Peer Reviewer for several nursing and medical journals, Doody Publishing, and for SNRS.

Joan Brundick, RN

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
RAI Coordinator

Joan Brundick is a facility advisory nurse with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Missouri-Columbia Sinclair School of Nursing in 1984. Since that time she has worked in the long-term care industry in a variety of positions including Director of Nursing and MDS Coordinator. She is a SMQT certified surveyor and also serves as the RAI Coordinator for Missouri.

Ronda Cramer

University of Missouri
Fiscal Assistant, Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology

George Demiris, PhD

University of Washington
Associate Professor, Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Systems, School of Nursing & Biomedical and Health Informatics, School of Medicine

George Demiris is the Graduate Program Director of the Biomedical and Health Informatics Graduate Program at the School of Medicine and the Director of the Clinical Informatics and Patient Centered Technologies Program at the School of Nursing. He obtained his MSc degree in Medical Informatics from the University of Heidelberg, Germany and his PhD degree in Health Informatics from the University of Minnesota. Prior to his current appointment, he was an Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Health Informatics at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research interests include the design and evaluation of home based technologies for older adults and patients with chronic conditions and disabilities, smart homes and ambient assisted living applications and the use of telehealth in home care and hospice. He is the Chair of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Working Group on Smart homes and Ambient Assisted Living, the Chair of the Human Factors Special Interest Group of the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and the Lead Convener of the Technology and Aging Special Interest Group of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA).

De Minner, BSN, RN, BC

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator/Consultant, QIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

De Minner BSN, RN a former ADON, has been with the MDS & Quality Research Team at the Sinclair School of Nursing since 1998; first, with the QIPMO program in Mid-Missouri, and later with the NIH-funded research project, Roadmap to Success. She has been a frequent speaker at conferences on elder care both in and out of state. De's major areas of interest are quality of care and quality of life for people with dementia as well as pain management for people with dementia. She has earned the designation of a Dementia Care Mapping (DCM) Evaluator from Bradford Dementia Group at the University of Bradford, UK and is presently she is enrolled in classes there to become a DCM instructor in the U.S. She has published two nursing journal articles. The first, on the use of Snoezelen therapy for residents with dementia, and the second, on pain in elderly home health clients.

Colleen Galambos, PhD, MSW

University of Missouri
Professor, School of Social Work

Dr. Colleen Galambos is a professor in the School of Social Work with a joint appointment in the Sinclair School of Nursing. Dr. Galambos has over 70 publications and has written books, book chapters, journal articles, and encyclopedia entries. She received funding from the Hartford Foundation, Jesse Ball Dupont Foundation, The State of Missouri Department of Social Services, Division of Children's Services, HRSA, Baltimore City Commission on Aging and Retirement Education, and State of Maryland Developmental Disabilities Administration. Prior to entering academe, she worked as a medical and psychiatric social worker in both clinical and administrative positions for over 15 years. Her research interests include quality care in long term care with an emphasis on mental health and psychosocial services, intervention research, gerontology education, development of gerontological competencies, and research on vulnerable populations, including health disparities. A strong advocate for the development of industry standards to improve excellence, Dr. Galambos is a past member of the Joint Accreditation for Health Care Organizations Professional and Technical Advisory Committee on Long Term Care and currently serves on the Missouri State Board of Nursing Home Administrators. She is past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Health and Social Work and immediate past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Social Work Education. She currently serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Gerontological Social Work.

Zhihai (Henry) He, PhD

University of Missouri
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Zhihai "Henry" He is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Missouri who worked as a research engineer at the David Sarnoff Research Center before joining the MU faculty. He obtained his BS from Beijing Normal University in China, his MS from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his PhD from the University of California. His research focus is on image/video processing, coding and network communication, and wireless video sensor network.

Lanis Hicks, PhD

University of Missouri
Professor, Health Management and Informatics

Dr. Hicks is a health economist. Her research interests are rural health, workforce requirements, and economic evaluations. A component of this research has been the development of general indicators of physician requirements and, specifically, detailed analyses of the changing specialty and geographic distribution of physicians. She has also focused on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of technologies in the delivery of health care, and been involved with a multi-disciplinary team identifying and evaluating measures of quality in nursing homes and the relationship between cost and quality. In recognition of her contributions, Dr. Hicks was the recipient of the 1999 National Rural Health Association's Distinguished Researcher award.

Debra Parker-Oliver, PhD, MSW

Ian Kable

University of Missouri
Systems Support Analyst, Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology

James Keller, PhD

University of Missouri
Curators Professor & R.L. Tatum Research Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dr. Keller received his PhD in Mathematics in 1978. He has had faculty appointments in the Bioengineering/Advanced Automation Program, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and the Computer Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he currently holds the rank of Professor. He is also the R. L. Tatum Research Professor in the College of Engineering. His research interests include computer vision, pattern recognition, fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic, fractal geometry, and neural networks. He has been funded by several industrial and government institutions, including the Electronics and Space Corporation, Union Electric, NASA/JSC, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Army Research Office, and the Office of Naval Research. Dr. Keller has coauthored over 150 technical publications. Professor Keller is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), is a national lecturer for the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and is a past President of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society (NAFIPS). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, and is on the editorial board of Pattern Analysis and Applications, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, and the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems.

Gregory Petroski, PhD

University of Missouri
Biostatistician, Medical Research Office

Dr. Petroski is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Management and Informatics, and Statistician with Office of Medical Research. He has many years of experience in the design and analysis of both clinical trials and observational studies. In his role as a consulting statistician he is required to be a "statistical generalist" - a statistician with mastery of a broad range of statistical methods and the mathematical background to keep up with the literature and apply new methods as needed. His particular areas of interest include psychometrics, applications of item response models to health measurement problems, methods for the detection and description of differential functioning, and applications of structural equation modeling. He is a former member of the MU Health Sciences IRB, faculty instructor for the NIDRR funded Research Enrichment Program for Physiatrists, and since 1995 he has been a co-investigator and primary statistician for a number of on-going research projects focusing on quality of care and quality of life for the elderly.

Lorraine Phillips, PhD, RN

University of Missouri
Assistant Professor, Sinclair School of Nursing

Dr. Phillips received her PhD at The University of Texas at Austin. Her current nursing specialties are gerontological nursing and she is a family nurse practitioner. Her interest areas include geropsychiatric nursing, mental health of long-term care residents, behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, and nursing interventions to reduce depression and improve quality of life for persons residing in long term care. Her program of research involves the effect of TimeSlips, a storytelling intervention, on communication, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and quality of life in nursing home residents with dementia, and predictors of depression in nursing home residents.

Sharon Thomas, BSN, RN

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator/Consultant, QIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

Sharon Thomas, RN, BSN has been a Clinical Consultant/Educator for the MU MDS and Quality Research Team as a member of QIPMO since 2005. As part of that program, she has also served as a Program Manager and Quality Educator for Primaris. Her primary role is consultation and quality improvement training in skilled care facilities. Ms. Thomas' LTC experience includes being the Director of Nursing for a 60-bed skilled care facility. Prior to joining the QIPMO Team, she worked in the acute care setting as a staff nurse, nursing manager, and business technology analyst for the hospital's Information Technology Department. She was a case manager and community nurse with the Department of Mental Health, managing a caseload of persons with developmental disabilities and mental health diagnoses. She maintains that relationship with limited consulting and training. Ms. Thomas provides training on Alzheimer's and other dementias for the Mid-MO chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. She is certified as a Dementia Care Mapping (Basic) User from Heather Hill Institute in Chardon, OH.

Harry Tyrer, PhD

University of Missouri
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Harry W. Tyrer is a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Missouri. Along with his years at MU, Tyrer's experience includes working at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Becton-Dickinson Research Center, and the Cancer Research Center as well as consultancies for McDonnell Douglas MSC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Tyrer's research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Bonnie Wakefield, PhD, RN

University of Missouri
Professor, Sinclair School of Nursing

Bonnie Wakefield was appointed Associate Research Professor for the Sinclair School of Nursing in the fall of 2005. She holds a PhD and MA from the University of Iowa College of Nursing. She also serves as director of health services research and development at Truman Memorial VeteranÕs Hospital in Columbia. Her work experience includes 22 years at the VA Medical Center in Iowa City, Iowa. Her most recent position at the VA in Iowa City was Associate Chief, Nursing Research.

David Zimmerman, PhD

University of Wisconsin
Project Director, Center for Health Systems Research and Analysis
Adjunct Professor, Industrial Engineering, Industrial Relations Research Institute

Dr. Zimmerman is the Director of the Center for Health Systems Research and Analysis (CHSRA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. CHSRA project funding in the current fiscal year totals over $7 million, with a staff of approximately 75 faculty, researchers, programmers, and support personnel. As CHSRA Director, Dr. Zimmerman is responsible for project oversight, planning, coordination of project and proposal activities, and general Center management and administration.

Mary Zwygart-Stauffacher, PhD, RN, FAAN

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Associate Dean & Professor, College of Nursing and Health Sciences

Dr. Zwygart-Stauffacher received her PhD in nursing with a minor in long-term care public policy/public administration from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she currently serves as the interim dean. Her current course areas are qualitative research methods, professional role issues for advanced practice nurses, and nursing management, health care systems, and quality of care. Her research interests include the quality indicators/quality care measures for long-term care and issues of advance nursing practice and care of frail elders. She has expertise in graduate nursing education and gerontological nursing educational programming, quality of care/quality of life for long-term care residents, and the primary care of frail elders.

Greg Alexander, PhD, RN

University of Missouri
Assistant Professor, Sinclair School of Nursing

Dr. Greg Alexander received his PhD at the University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing where he currently is a faculty member with a specialty in Informatics and Human Computer Interaction. He conducts his research based on the use of human-factors theories to research interrelationships between humans, the technology they use, the environment in which they live and work, and the tasks they perform with a current focus on the nursing home industry. In 2008, he received the Sinclair School of Nursing Faculty Award for Excellence in Research.

Trish Kincade RN, BSN, LNHA

University of Missouri
Clinical Educator/Consultant, QIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

Trish Kincade is a Clinical Consultant/Educator for the University of Missouri's Sinclair School of Nursing and a member of QIPMO, serving the Southeast Missouri area. Her role in this region is to provide clinical consultation and education based upon evidence-based practices to skilled care facilities. She also participates as a member of the statewide MU MDS Quality and Research Team. Trish has over twenty-five years of nursing experience, with the last ten years having been focused on geriatrics in the long-term care setting. She has worked in both the clinical and administrative areas of LTC and has held positions as Director of Nursing Services, Licensed Nursing Home Administrator, and Corporate Quality Assurance Nurse Consultant.

Dave Walker

University of Missouri
Long-Term Care Leadership Coach, Sinclair School of Nursing

Dave Walker is a Consultant/Educator in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing and serves as a Long-Term Care Leadership Coach. He provides quality improvement training for administrators and management leaders in skilled care facilities throughout the state. Dave has over 40 years of long-term care experience and has been a practicing licensed administrator in Missouri for almost 30 years. He has a proven track record of survey compliance, operations and financial accountability, relationship building, leadership ability, and implementation of Culture Change. His professional affiliations include serving on the board for Missouri Association of Nursing Home Administrators (MANHA), serving on the board for the Missouri Coalition Celebrating Care Continuum Change (MC5), member of Missouri Local Area Network for Excellence (MO LANE), and member of Missouri Health Care (MHC). His professional recognitions include: Administrator of the Year in 1990, Quality of Life Award in 1995, Award of Excellence in 2006, Gold Award of Excellence in 1997 and 1998, Missouri Health Care Administrator of the year for District V in 2001, and the President's Award from Missouri Association of Nursing Home Administrators in 2008.