Office of Nursing Research

Colleen is a first-year PhD student with a background as a registered nurse and public health professional. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Thomas Edison State University and a Master of Public Health from Loma Linda University.

Her passion for discovery drives her pursuit of a nursing research career focused on environmental health. Colleen is particularly interested in the impact of environmental determinants – such as extreme heat, air quality and other hazards – on human health. She is committed to advancing rigorous research in underserved communities where environmental injustices are most acute.

She values collaboration across disciplines and brings an interdisciplinary approach to her work. As a research assistant, she supports faculty projects by analyzing data, conducting literature reviews, and contributing to grant proposals, posters and manuscripts.

Jay is a third-year PhD student. His experience includes health policy analyst and nursing management at Toronto Public Health. His research interests include improving the physical, cognitive, and emotional health of the geriatric population, primarily living in assisted living facilities, using mindfulness-based practices. As a research assistant, Jay reviews literature, analyzes and interprets data, proofreads manuscripts, and prepares presentations.

Joseph M. Crane is a Doctor of Nursing Practice–Family Nurse Practitioner student and Research Assistant at the University at Buffalo School of Nursing. Drawing on nearly a decade of critical care nursing experience, he brings a clinically grounded and person-centered perspective to nursing and interdisciplinary research.

As an emerging nurse scientist, Crane’s scholarship centers around environmental health, health equity, social determinants of health, infectious disease, and clinical documentation. His recent work uses large healthcare datasets and quantitative methods to examine how environmental exposures and related risks are represented in clinical and public health data. He is particularly interested in strengthening documentation practices and developing evidence-informed approaches that connect frontline care, public health surveillance, and equitable health-system responses. He is also interested in real-time environmental monitoring and using data to help populations live in a healthier landscape.

Crane has contributed to qualitative HIV research, grant development and multiple funded projects alongside faculty research mentors. After earning his DNP in May 2027, he plans to practice as a nurse practitioner, continue developing as an academic nurse scientist, and pursue PhD-level study.

Lissette is a fourth-year, part-time PhD student in nursing. She has been a nurse for 15 years and has experience in long-term care, home health care, public health and nursing education.  Her research interests include chronic disease management, vaccine hesitancy, and nursing education.  In the future, she plans on conducting research to better understand factors that may be contributing to poor maternal vaccine confidence and acceptance.  As a research assistant, she provides research and scholarly support to faculty who are conducting research.  

Holly is a first-year nursing PhD student and research assistant at the University at Buffalo.

Her research interests include understanding mental health experiences, healthcare equity, and clinician well-being. Her work focuses on psychiatric diagnoses, healthcare worker vicarious trauma and how provider bias affects care delivery to diverse religious and cultural groups. Additionally, she explores the environmental influences that shape long-term mental health, as well as clinical phenomena surrounding end-of-life care.

Holly’s doctoral work builds upon nearly two decades of diverse clinical nursing experience. A registered nurse since 2008, her background spans end-of-life care, child, adolescent, and geriatric psychiatry, clinical administration, and case management, among others. She earned her MSN in Nursing Leadership and Change and subsequently completed a Post-Master’s Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Certificate in 2021. She actively practices as a board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner in the Buffalo area. In her role as a graduate research assistant, she supports departmental research and faculty projects by engaging directly with study participants, conducting comprehensive literature reviews, managing and analyzing data, and contributing to the development of scholarly manuscripts, presentations, and grant proposals.