International Initiatives
Institute for Action Research in Community Health (IARCH) Fellows
IARCH Fellows are university faculty and community-based professionals who represent the fields of nursing, law, medicine, public health, sociology, and dentistry.
To be designated an IARCH Fellow, individuals must:
- have expertise in conducting action research or be committed to promoting the concepts of action research;
- engage in work that builds local capacity to develop, implement, evaluate, and sustain community health promoting initiatives; and
- combine scholarship with service in their primary role as faculty members or community leaders.
Fellows are involved in IARCH-sponsored conferences, seminars, and projects. Please contact the IARCH director, Joanne Martin, DrPH, RN, FAAN (jbmartin [at] iupui [dot] edu), for more information about any of the IARCH fellows.
IARCH Fellows
Anne E. Belcher, DNS, PNP, RN
Belcher has a background in community health nursing with an emphasis on children's health. Her major academic interests are in the areas of action research, community collaboration, school health, immunizations, and populations at risk, such as homeless children. Belcher received Indiana’s Premier Health Award, “The Tony and Mary Hulman Health Achievement Award,” in the field of Preventive Medicine and Public Health.
Dawn Daniels, DNS, RN, CCRN
Daniels is the program coordinator for Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Indianapolis at Riley Hospital. She is one of the co-investigators in the development of an injury surveillance system for Marion County, Indiana. She works with the community to develop a faith-based permanent fitting station (car seat program) in which community members at local churches are certified as car seat technicians.
Betsy Fife, PhD, RN
Fife is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in psych/mental health with a doctorate in sociology. Her research focus is adaptation and coping with the stress of life-threatening illness with an emphasis on the family that includes both cancer and HIV/AIDS. Her work includes exploratory as well as intervention studies that have been funded by NIH, ACS, Walther Cancer Institute, and pharmaceutical firms. She has extensive experience and many publications in these areas.
Kathryn Irene Frank, DNS, RN
Frank’s research has consisted of working with older adults with diabetes to evaluate the impact of an educational experience to improve foot-care behaviors. Frank also was research project of the Visiting Nurse Services of New York with a study of Medicare recipients in ten cities, including Indianapolis, to evaluate the cities' level of being "Senior Friendly."
Janis E. Gerkensmeyer, PhD, PMH,CNS-BC
Gerkensmeyer’s most recent research involved a NIH-funded problem-solving intervention for primary caregivers of children with mental health problems. Her research prior to this examined the quality of life of primary caregivers of children with mental health problems. Dr. Gerkensmeyer's dissertation focused on the underlying determinants of parent satisfaction with mental health services for children. She has also evaluated parent support group outcomes. Gerkensmeyer has publications from the area of mental health services for children from the parent's perspective as well as in the area of pediatric pain care.
Joanne Goldbort, PhD, MS, RN
Goldbort has been Director of Maternal and Child Services at Union Hospital in Terre Haute, Indiana, since 2001. She is a practicing registered nurse with clinical expertise in the area of maternal and child nursing, committed to improving outcomes for mother/infant dyads. She served as chairperson for two statewide Indiana Perinatal Network initiatives to address the issues of perinatal mood disorders, in particular perinatal depression (PPD). Since 1992, she has served AWHONN in many capacities, including committee member for 18 state perinatal conferences and eight local perinatal conferences. She has received AWHONN’s National Award of Excellence in Advocacy and served a two-year term as a member of AWHONN’s Board of Directors and on its Public Policy Committee.
Ann Johnson, MSN
Johnson is program manager for the MOM Project, a Healthy Families Indiana (HFI) site serving about 425 families on the westside of Indianapolis. Johnson was the coordinator of communicable disease for Marion County (Indiana) Health Department where she was involved with an Indianapolis Public School Middle School Asthma Project. She also chairs the Evaluation Workgroup for HFI.
NiCole R. Keith, PhD
Keith is an associate professor in the Department of Physical Education and an affiliated research scientist in the Indiana University Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute. She is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and is an elected member of its Board of Trustees. Her research focuses on health disparities in disadvantaged communities and minority populations and currently targets populations in the Indianapolis Public School and in the Wishard Hospital Community Health Centers. She is dedicated to conducting research that reduces and eventually eliminates the existing racial and socio-economic health disparities gap.
Eleanor Kinney, JD, MPH
Kinney is the Hall Render Professor of Law and co-director of the William S. and Christine S. Hall Center for Law and Health at the Indiana University School of Law. Some of her most important projects have included the legal support assessment of county health departments in Indiana and the Project on Indiana’s Medicaid program, funded by Kaiser Family Foundation, and several Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded projects. She has served in several governor-appointed positions, including the Executive Board for the Indiana State Department of Health.
Joyce A. Krothe, DNS, MSN
Krothe directs the Indiana University School of Nursing program on the Bloomington campus and is director of the Brown County Health Support Clinic. She is the recipient of many awards and was a 2002-2003 Community-Campus Partnership for Health Fellow.
Joanne Martin, DrPH, RN, FAAN
Martin's research is in the area of health care financing, policy, infant mortality, breastfeeding, community-based care coordination for pregnant women, home-visiting programs to prevent child abuse and neglect, and program evaluation. Martin was director of Healthy Families America (1989/90) and statewide training and technical assistance for Healthy Families Indiana (HFI) from 1994-2010 and founding director of the MOM Project. She was a ZERO TO THREE Harris Fellow for 2005-2006, and appointed by Indiana Governor Daniels to the Executive Board for Indiana State Department of Health. She serves on the Board of Directors for March of Dimes, Indiana Chapter and Covering Kids and Families (CKF). In 2010, as co-chair of the CKF Early Childhood and Schools Committee, she played a major leadership role in creating the Indiana School Health Network. Martin also chairs the Evaluation Committee for United Way of Central Indiana’s Success by Six initiative.
Rose Mays, PhD, RN, FAAN
A specialist in adolescent health care, Mays is a pediatric nurse practitioner who conducts research on issues of health promotion/disease prevention for adolescents and women. Her most recent presentations and research publications center around the acceptability of vaccines for sexually transmitted infections.
Su Moore, DNS, RN
Dr. Moore is involved in high fidelity and actors simulation both in the School of Nursing and interdisciplinary. She also emphasizes her simulation with gerontology and geriatric syndromes. She is the founding director of the award-winning Shalom Health Care Center, primary care inner city and in Indianapolis. She has received funding for school-based clinics from multiple sources and has published on interdisciplinary team.
Sara Neal, MSN, RN, BSW
Neal teaches community health nursing at Anderson University, where she coordinates service learning initiatives for nursing students and leads an intercultural nursing trip. Recently, Neal has been part of a team which partnered with local hospitals to develop a high-fidelity simulation lab at Anderson University School of Nursing. Academic interests include epidemiology, the effects of poverty on health, and feminist ethics.
Daniel J. Pesut, PhD, RN, FAAN
Pesut, professor of nursing at Indiana University School of Nursing, holds a certificate in management development from the Harvard Institute for Higher Education and a graduate certificate in Integral Studies from Fielding Graduate University as well as certificate of completion in core mediation skills training from the International Association of Dispute Resolution (IARD) and Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. Additionally, Dr. Pesut is authorized to use the Transforming Leadership-Leadership Development Framework (LDF). The LDF is an evidence-based research tool designed for coaching and developing leaders within organizations and for people who want to enhance their leadership skill set.
Dixie Ray, PhD
Ray is an associate professor emerita of the Indiana University School of Nursing and one of the founders of the WHO Collaborating Center for Healthy Cities and the Institute for Action Research in Community Health (IARCH). She is an experienced evaluator of community-based programs and has published her work on participatory action research in peer-reviewed journals.
Michael Reece, PhD, MPH
Reece’s current research is focused on two primary areas: HIV-related mental health care service delivery and sexual health promotion. He explores factors associated with the development of mental health care systems that are responsive to the unique needs of individuals living with HIV from ethnic minority and other disenfranchised communities and individuals with additional diagnoses, such as substance addiction. He is also focused on understanding the role of corporate entities that provide sexuality-related services. One project will be centered on ways that women recovering from breast and gynecological-related cancer surgery deal with sexuality issues.
Mary E. Riner, DNS, RN
Riner has a background in community health nursing and international health. Her major academic interests lie in transformational learning and international service learning. She has presented papers and published on international service learning and global health. Her current research focuses on the use of action research to explore community perception of health issues and tailor community-based interventions designed to promote heath and well-being. Riner was a Boyer Scholar in Service Learning. She is currently a research member of the Bi-national Cross Cultural Health Enhancement Center.
Kathleen Russell, DNS, RN
Russell has focused on improving minority health disparities throughout her entire nursing career. Her program of research is in cancer prevention and control for African American populations. Most recently she has tested behavioral interventions to promote early detection of breast cancer in medically underserved African American women. She received NIH funding to determine the efficacy of a combined lay health advisor and interactive tailored computer program to increase mammography screening in urban African American women.
Robert M. Saywell, Jr., PhD, MPH
Saywell is well regarded for his work as a health economist and his ability to work in partnership with other investigators. He is widely published in peer-reviewed journals, including articles on evaluation of community-based programs.
Carol Shieh, DNSc, MPH, RNC-OB
Shieh has been involved in promoting maternal and women’s health for socially at-risk populations, such as immigrant pregnant women, prenatal drug users, low-income pregnant women, and women with chronic diseases. Her recent research has focused on health information-seeking behavior of pregnant women and the use of information-behavior intervention for gestational weight gain compliance. She examined factors, especially health literacy, self-efficacy, and readability and suitability of education materials, that facilitate information-seeking and behavioral change. She has received funding internally and externally and has published study results in numerous journals.
Wendy Stoelting-Gettelfinger, JD, DNS, RN
As a doctoral student, Stoelting-Gettelfinger’s dissertation examined the relationships between and among Medicaid population characteristics, use of prenatal care, use of prenatal Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) services, and selected birth outcomes in Indiana using 1994 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring Data. She was also the primary investigator on a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Infrastructure Grant from 2002 to 2004. In her current position as an assistant professor in the department of environments for health at Indiana University School of Nursing on the Bloomington campus, she is responsible for teaching the didactic portion of the Community Health Nursing course.
Cynthia L. Stone, DrPH, RN
Stone has published on educational program evaluation concerning cancer education, capstone courses, research utilization, and tuberculosis education. She is the vice-chair of the Indiana Home Care and Hospice Services Council, on the board of directors of the Indiana State Nurses Association, and the governing council of the American Public Health Association. Her research interests focus on program evaluation and web-based instructional strategies.
Nancy Swigonski, MD, MPH
Swigonski’s clinical service is in a neighborhood health center, North Arlington Health Center, where she has provided care to teenage mothers and their babies for the past 12 years. She contributed to the Indianapolis Healthy Start evaluation that was a collaborative of the Marion County (Indiana) Health Department and 16 community organizations to increase prenatal care and decrease infant mortality. She is also a co-principal investigator of the Anne E. Dyson Community Pediatrics Training Initiative to equip pediatric residents with relevant tools and knowledge for community practice.
Shelley Vaughn, MS
Vaughn is currently involved in Indianapolis Healthy Start (IHS) program outcomes research in conjunction with program evaluators Dr. Haywood Brown and Mark Smith. She has also been involved with Indiana Access in support of their unintended pregnancy focus groups by having IHS help to recruit consumers to attend and by providing transportation support for participants. She has worked with IHS in developing a Centering Pregnancy Program in conjunction with Wishard Health Services.
Kathy Weaver, JD, MPA, RN
Weaver is the director of the Public Health and Medicine Partnerships at Indiana State Department of Health. She has sought to understand the practice of local public health departments in their ability to provide essential public health services. For almost 30 years she has assisted communities to meet their health care services needs by consulting with local hospitals, not-for-profits, and local health departments to establish maternal and child health clinics, car-seat loan programs, and childhood lead poisoning prevention services. As faculty advisor for the master’s in public health program, Kathy assisted students with the design of their internships and capstone projects.
Corinne Wheeler, PhD(c), MSN, RN
Wheeler conducted an assessment of Warsaw, Poland’s community that led to the planning and implementation of multiple health programs in an ambulatory health clinic. As executive director, she was involved in the Healthy Indy Partnership (HIP), which was a product of a unique 1994 collaboration among Indianapolis’s major hospitals and the Marion County (Indiana) Health Department to fund and conduct Marion County’s first baseline community health assessment. She was also the executive director at The Saint Christopher Center, Inc., which addresses the need for specialized childcare services for families who are homeless.
Eric Wright, PhD
As a graduate student, Wright worked with the Indiana Youth Group, Inc. (IYG), a youth service agency serving gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning youth, and the Indiana State Department of Health to develop an innovative HIV prevention program and prepare an application to the Special Projects of National Significance Program at the HIV/AIDS Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Most recently, he has been working with the Dawn Project, a local system-of-care initiative designed to improve and coordinate the services provided to youth with serious emotional disorders and their families. He is also the director of the Health Policy Center at Indiana University's School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA).
Karen M. Yoder, MSD, PhD
Yoder is professor and director, Division of Community Dentistry, Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry at Indiana University School of Dentistry (IUSD), with an adjunct appointment at Indiana University School of Medicine’s MPH Program. Prior to coming to IUSD she worked in the Division of Oral Health at the Indiana State Department of Health for 22 years. She is director of IUSD's SEAL INDIANA program and is responsible for developing and sustaining community-based programs, integrating service-learning into the curriculum including international service-learning programs in seven countries, teaching dental public health, and fostering insight and activism in the health policy process.
Terrell W. Zollinger, DrPH, MSPH
Zollinger is a professor at the IU School of Medicine as well as associate director of the Bowen Research Center. Zollinger serves as a research consultant in the area of epidemiology to hospitals, health departments, managed care organizations, and other health-related organizations. He is the director of evaluation for the Indiana Area Health Education Centers project and the Learning Well, Inc. school-based clinics. He is also a consultant to the Indiana Minority Health Coalition's Racial and Ethnic Minority Epidemiological Center.
Enid E. Zwirn, PhD, MPH, RN
Zwirn has a background in maternal, child, and community health. She is interested in the technologies that make the processes of teaching and learning efficient and effective. Recognized as a dynamic and committed educator, she was a frequent recipient of teaching awards (voted Outstanding Teacher of the Year four times, twice selected as a Teaching Excellence Recognition Award recipient, and selected for Sigma Theta Tau's Education Recognition Award).
Since her retirement, Dr. Zwirn has remained an active community leader. She serves on the boards of Covering Kids and Families, Inc., the Maternity-Family League of Indiana, and is President of the Board of Directors for the Indiana Health Advocacy Coalition.
