Author: rebekahjacob

Nicole Rankin, PhD was recently awarded a major grant (R01 equivalent) from Austrailia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for her work in Lung cancer screening implementation work. Her application was one of only 12 awarded out of a total of 117 applications! Her work titled “Accelerating translation: Acceptability and feasibility of potential lung […]

Stephanie Staras, PhD, MSPH (2016 Cohort) was recently awarded an R01 from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) entitled “Text and Talk: A multi-level intervention to increase provider HPV vaccine recommendation effectiveness“. The grant addresses the need for more effective and pragmatic preventive interventions to increase provider HPV vaccine recommendations. The goal of the proposal is to […]

MT-DIRC fellow Matthew Nielsen, MD, MS, FACS (2015 cohort) was recently appointed as Chair of the American Urological Association’s Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (QIPS) Committee. He will serve on the committee charged with fostering quality urological care from 2019-2022. Read the full story in the May 2nd edition of Vital Signs. Congrats Matt!!

Sarah Birken, PhD (2015 cohort) was recently selected to receive UNC-Chapel Hill’s University Award for the Advancement of Women which recognized Birken for her efforts in elevating the status of women on the UNC campus, improving campus policies for the upward mobility of women and mentorship and professional development of other women. This award comes only […]

Cindy Perry, PhD of the 2014 MT-DIRC cohort was first author of the recently published work in Implementation Science titled: Specifying and comparing implementation strategies across seven large implementation interventions: a practical application of theory. Dr. Perry’s finding’s suggest possible revisions to implementation strategies to make them more usable in “real-work”,  “on-the-ground” dissemination and implementation efforts. […]

MT-DIRC 2017 fellow Pedro Saint-Maurice’s recent JAMA Network Open article “Association of Leisure-Time Physical Activity Across the Adult Life Course With All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality” has reached the general public audience through write up’s in media outlets such as TIME and Popular Science. Reaching the audience that the research is intended to help is a researcher’s dream […]

2016 MT-DIRC Fellow Shellie Ellis, MA, PhD was recently awarded an NIH P20 subproject titled Implementing Precision Medicine: Determinants of Adoption in Community Oncology. It is a 3-year project to better understand precision medicine use and determinants of innovation adoption in oncology more broadly. 2014 MT-DIRC Fellow Sarah Birken, PhD is also contributing to this grant […]

2014 MT-DIRC fellow Sarah Birken is co-hosting AcaDames, a podcast about women in academia. A full description follows. You can find AcaDames wherever you get your podcasts (e.g., iTunes, Google Play), or on our website https://www.acadamespodcast.com/, and you can follow us on Twitter @AcaDamesPodcast. We hope that you’ll listen, send your feedback, and share with AcaDames of […]

Shoba Ramanadhan ScD, MPH will begin as Assistant Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences) in July 2019! Shoba says: “I am really excited about building my own program.  I really feel that participating in the [MT-DIRC] program gave me confidence in what I bring to the table […]

Congratulations to MT-DIRC 2017 fellow Lisa Lowenstein, PhD, MPH who was awarded the American Cancer Society Mentored Research Scientist Grant for her work with decision making in men with prostate cancer! The title of her new 5-year project is “Older Men’s Decision Making about Active Surveillance for Prostate Cancer.” The project aims are to 1) explore older […]

Dr. Ted Skolarus (MT-DIRC fellow, 2014 cohort) recently received word from the National Cancer Institute of funding for his R01 entitled De-implementation of low value castration for men with prostate cancer. According to Dr. Skolarus, the study will “transform how and why low value castration is practiced, and advance the science behind stopping low value, even […]

Check out how MT-DIRC fellows are increasing skills in D&I! Preliminary findings from the MT-DIRC program, published in a new article entitled Training scholars in dissemination and implementation research for cancer prevention and control: a mentored approach, show improved D&I skills from baseline (start of program) to 6 and 18 months post. In addition, fellows rate the mentoring […]

Eight MT-DIRC fellows (along with Mentor Ross Brownson) came together and jointly published the article entitled: Participatory implementation science to increase the impact of evidence-based cancer prevention and control. The article was published in Cancer Causes and Control in February 2018. The Fellow Authors include: Shoba Ramanadhan (2014 cohort), Melinda Davis (2016 cohort), Rebecca Armstrong (2015 cohort), Barbara Baquero (2016 cohort), Jennifer Leng […]

MT-DIRC fellow Justin Moore recently published The Application of an Implementation Science Framework to Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: Be a Champion! in Implementation Science. The article, in which Moore first authored, describes the Be A Champion! (a comprehensive school physical activity program or CSPAP) and details implementation across the Quality Implementation Framework (QIF) in […]

Ramzi Salloum, PhD (2016 MT-DIRC Fellow) has an exciting new systematic review featured in Implementation Science. In the review, Dr. Salloum along with MT-DIRC Mentor David Chambers and colleagues look at Discrete Choice Experiments used to engage stakeholders as an implementation strategy. Check out the results and the full text article HERE! Dr. Salloum says […]

Check out this new publication first authored by Fellow Sarah Birken (2014 Cohort) which examined which theories implementation scientists use and the criteria for selecting them. Top 3 theories used: 1) Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), 2) Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance (REAIM), and 3) Diffusion of Innovation. Most important criterion for selecting theory: 1)Empirical support, 2) […]

Stephanie Wheeler was awarded UNC’s Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement on September 8th at the UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Council meeting. Read more about the award here. Way to go, Dr. Wheeler!

MT-DIRC Fellow Melinda Davis, PhD (2016 cohort) was recently awarded a 4-year NCI K07 award to begin August 1st, 2017! The award will support “PRECISE CRC” which tests tools and processes to support tailored implementation of a direct mail (DM) program in a novel population and setting: rural primary care. It will continue to support […]

In July 2016, Bekka Lee received a two-year R21 grant entitled “Effective Training Models for Implementing Health-Promoting Practices After school (1R21CA201567-01A1)” from the National Cancer Institute. The group randomized trial seeks to address the nation’s high childhood obesity rates by establishing the effectiveness and implementation of in person and online trainings for scaling up an […]

Check out this article that came from a collaborative effort of both 2014, 2015 fellows & faculty. We are so proud to see products like this coming form our program! Koczwara_how context matters_2016

Our faculty have published an article about their experiences with D&I grant writing. Check out the publication below: Brownson_DI grant writing_CTSJ_2015 Abstract: Background: This paper reports core competencies for dissemination and implementation (D&I) grant application writing and provides tips for writing a successful proposal. Methods:  Two related phases were used to collect the data: a card sorting […]

Can be found at Implementation Science: http://www.implementationscience.com/content/10/1/114 Abstract Background With demand increasing for dissemination and implementation (D&I) training programs in the USA and other countries, more structured, competency-based, and tested curricula are needed to guide training programs. There are many benefits to the use of competencies in practice-based education such as the establishment of rigorous […]