Investigator Development Core
- MCUAAAR Pilot Scholar Investigators-
The Investigator Core funds and mentors research projects for junior African American and other underrepresented faculty. The focus of pilot projects has been identifying and developing
potential pilot scholars and providing mentoring during proposal development.
Current Pilot Scholar Investigators
New 2008-2009 MCUAAAR Pilots
Bo MacInnis, PhD (University of Michigan)
Hasan Shanawani (Wayne State University)
Karen Patricia Williams, PhD (University of Michigan)
The 2007-2008 MCUAAAR Pilots
Nicole M. Huby, PsyD (University of Michigan)
Fayetta Martin, MSW, DL (Wayne State University)
Trina R. Shanks, PhD (University of Michigan)
Nicole M. Huby, PsyD
Dr. Nicole M. Huby is a neuropsychologist investigator. Her specific research interests are mild cognitive impairment and methods of memory assessment in African American elders. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from Howard University in Psychology, and a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of the District of Columbia. Dr. Huby completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Wayne State University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and earned a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology (Forensic track) from Argosy University/Washington, DC Campus. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the University of Michigan Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry and is an Adjunct Clinical Lecturer in the Pediatrics Department in the University of Michigan Health System. She works as a Forensic Psychologist with the State of Michigan at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry and is a current pilot scholar with the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research. Currently, Dr. Huby analyzes secondary data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine questions about the role of cognition in caregiver burden in old age.
Bo MacInnis, PhD
Dr. MacInnis’ research focuses on the economic incentives that influence consumers’ health production and labor market participation decisions, and the impact of public policies and market imperfections. In her dissertation, Dr. MacInnis examined the relationships between parental occupational choice and children’s physical and cognitive health, the effect of the changing nature of food manufacturing on childhood obesity, and the long-term dual impact of college education and military service on obesity and related health morbidities. Her current research focuses on the economic well-being, physical and mental health, and the retirement expectation of the baby boomer generation, and the impact of the baby boom on Social Security and Medicare programs.
http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/people/profile/735
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Fayetta Martin, MSW, DL
Dr. Fayetta Martin received her doctorate of law in Health Law in 2003. She completed a two year postdoctoral research fellowship funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse with a focus on behavior addictions issues affecting older adults. Her research centers on the co-morbidity of health disorders, particularly those relating to behavior addictions (i.e. casino gambling), risk taking and antisocial behaviors of urban elders. Other areas of interest include closing the gap between health disparity and successful minority aging, elder law, social and aging policy and online teaching. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at Wayne State University, School of Social Work in Detroit, Michigan.
http://socialwork.wayne.edu/bio.php?id=969
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Hasan Shanawani
Hasan Shanawani, MPH, MD, is a clinician-investigator in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. His research interests are physician-patient communication in critically and/ or terminally ill patients from minority ethnic, racial, and religious communities. He completed his undergraduate, masters and medical degrees from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His pulmonary and critical care training were completed at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina where he was also an ethics and policy fellow working on the ethics of genetics research in diseases where health disparities exist. Currently, Hasan is working on secondary data analysis of video-recorded physician-patient conversations of lung cancer patients at the Karmanos Cancer Institute’s Center for Behavioral Oncology.
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Trina R. Shanks, PhD
Trina Shanks is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan. She completed her Ph.D. and Masters in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis and is also a faculty associate with its Center for Social Development. In 1994 she was awarded the Rhodes scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, where she earned a Masters in Comparative Social Research. In addition to her graduate schooling, Dr. Shanks served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador working in micro-enterprise development and served as executive director of Christian Community Services, a church-affiliated not-for-profit agency she was invited to help form in Nashville, Tennessee. Trina initiated its family mentoring program and introduced Individual Development Accounts to its work with public housing residents. In her current research, funded by the Ford Foundation, she is co-investigator for the SEED Impact Assessment study, which sets up a quasi-experimental research design in Pontiac, Michigan, to test the impact of offering Head Start families 529 college education plans for their enrolled children. Her areas of research/scholarly interest include: asset-building policy and practice across the life cycle; the relationship between wealth, poverty and child well-being; public policy for families; social and economic development, particularly in urban communities. Her MCUAAAR pilot study examines wealth and assets among the elderly Black population.
http://www.ssw.umich.edu/about/profiles/profile-trwilli.html
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Karen Patricia Williams, PhD
Dr. Williams is an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics Gynecology & Reproductive Biology in the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University. Her formal training is in the area of applied sociology and health services research. Her area of expertise is in community-based participatory research and women’s health policy. Dr. Williams has designed a breast and cervical cancer prevention intervention -- Kin KeeperSM. It is a female familial model that incorporates a cancer literacy assessment and most recently has been translated into Spanish and Arabic. In addition, she and a colleague authored the Kin KeeperSM Cancer Prevention Intervention Curriculum Guide and Workbook©. This was funded by the Michigan Department of Community Health to cross train the community health workers who in turn implement the model with their public health clients. Dr. Williams and team were funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to implement the Kin KeeperSM model in Grand Rapids, Detroit and Dearborn.
Recently, she designed an undergraduate seminar, Conducting Community Based Research for Underserved Women, to teach students how to conduct community participatory research.
Dr. Williams has been the recipient of State and National peer-reviewed funding. She has authored peer-reviewed papers, reports and a book chapter that empirically illustrates the intersection of family and community as strong influences on a woman’s preventive health decisions. She serves on the Michigan Cancer Consortium Breast Cancer Committee and was a former co-chair of the Minority Women’s Health Panel of Experts with the United States Public Health Service’s Office on Women’s Health. She is a graduate of Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) and Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI).
http://humanmedicine.msu.edu/obgyn/web/directory/bios/williams_karen-LN.asp
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Requests for MCUAAAR Pilot Grant Proposals
For information on the annual summer training workshop
For more information contact: Karen L. Daniels @ 313-871-0735 or kldaniels@wayne.edu
MCUAAAR is a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Wayne State University
