Rebecca Schnall, PhD, MPH, RN-BC, FAAN, is the Mary Dickey Lindsay Professor of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in Nursing at Columbia University.
With a team of nurse scientists, HIV clinicians, biostatisticians, and trainees, Dr. Schnall leads studies which draw on her expertise in nursing, informatics, and public health. Her independent research program focuses on understanding the information needs of vulnerable patient populations and developing informatics tools to promote health and prevent disease. Her program of research seeks to reduce health disparities for persons from underserved communities and more specifically those living with and at risk for HIV. Her research is characterized by its solid theoretical foundations and rigorous and innovative mixed-methods studies that have resulted in a greater understanding of the information needs of consumers/patients, serving as the foundation for design of web-based and mobile applications with demonstrated impact.
Dr. Schnall's interdisciplinary work includes collaborations with colleagues across the US and internationally in the fields of infectious diseases, social work, American Indian studies, sociomedical sciences, health policy, epidemiology, biomedical informatics, chemistry, psychiatry, emergency medicine, adolescent medicine, and pediatrics.
In addition to her research efforts, Dr. Schnall mentors all levels of students at Columbia Nursing as well as master's in public health students, epidemiology post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty in nursing, public health and medicine. Through her extensive mentoring activities, she is helping to develop the next generation of nursing leaders.
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