After spending close to two decades working in home care, Suzanne Sullivan, MBA, RN, wanted to make an impact on patient care in the community, so when it came time for her to choose a dissertation topic for her PhD program, she needed to look no further than her extensive nursing career experience to find her focus.

Assistant Professor Jessica Castner, PhD, RN, is passionate about patient care and finding ways to improve the quality of care in our community to provide better patient outcomes. She and her UB colleagues, Sharon Hewner, PhD, RN, and Yow-Wu (Bill) Wu, PhD, are using data science to study emergency department (ED) utilization in those with behavioral health diagnoses.