The Wayne State University College of Nursing has announced the recipients of its internal research awards for spring 2023. Thanks to the generosity of donors, the following College of Nursing faculty members will receive financial support to advance their ongoing research addressing important issues across various areas of nursing science.

Harriet H. Werley Faculty Research Award

Assistant Professor Marvin Solberg, PhD, RN

Dr. Harriet H. Werley, the founder and first director of the Center for Health Research, endowed this award to assist faculty in achieving major research funding objectives and to attract additional extramural research funding to the College of Nursing.  

The spring 2023 award will support Dr. Solberg’s study, “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Substance Use in Sexual Minority Men and Women: The Effects of Current Stressors and Resilience,” which will recruit 200 sexual minority men and 200 minority women to determine the intervening effects of resilience and current stressors in the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and substance use outcomes. The study will provide critical knowledge for developing sexual gender minority-specific prevention interventions.

Ada Jacox Pain and Symptom Management Research Award

Assistant Professor Bincy Joshwa, PhD, MSN, RN

This award was established to promote research in pain and symptom management as well as the formulation of practice guidelines. It will provide continued support for Dr. Joshwa’s project, “Trajectory Patterns and Factors Predicting Fatigue in Individuals on Hemodialysis,” which aims to develop an effective combination of non-pharmacological methods that will alleviate fatigue and improve the quality of life in hemodialysis patients, with a primary objective to improve understanding of the diurnal fatigue patterns and factors that contribute to fatigue in individuals on hemodialysis. The award will help Dr. Joshwa recruit additional participants and pay for their transportation and stipends.

Dr. Judith Fry-McComish and Philip A. McComish Endowed Research Award

Assistant Professor Dalia Khalil, PhD, RN

Dr. Fry McComish, a professor in the College of Nursing from 1989 to 2015 who also held a joint appointment at the WSU School of Medicine from 1992 to 2007, endowed this award with her husband, engineer Philip A. McComish, to promote scholarship focused on the socioemotional health and development of vulnerable infants and their families and/or on infant mental health from a nursing perspective.

The spring 2023 award provides continued support for Dr. Khalil’s study, “Family Stress, Coparenting, and Infant Development among Immigrant Arab-American Families,” which is examining the hypothesis that higher parent migration-related stress is associated with higher infant stress and lower infant developmental test scores. Using a cross-sectional design, Dr. Khalil is recruiting 120 immigrant Arab American families who migrated to the United States within the past 10 years and have an infant 6 to 24 months old. The McComish award will support the collection of hair cortisol from mothers to assess chronic stress.