Geropsychiatric and Mental Health Nursing

Dr. Karen Devereaux Melillo is Professor and Chair, Department of Nursing, and Coordinator of the Gerontological Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.‘This program was named to the top tier of graduate nursing programs for this specialty by U.S. News and World Report, the only New England College or University recognized.‘She earned her PhD from Brandeis University’s Florence Heller School for the Advanced Study of Social Welfare in 1990, where her studies focused on aging, long-term care and health policy.‘She received her Master of Science Degree in Gerontological Nursing from the University of Lowell in 1978, which prepared her as a Gerontological Nurse Practitioner; in 1998, she was awarded the Francis Cabot Lowell Outstanding Alumni Award for the College of Health Professions at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.‘She was also selected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and for the Distinguished Alumni Award from Massachusetts Bay Community College, both in 2001.‘In 2009, she was selected as a Fellow in the Gerontological Society of America.‘Since coming to the University in 1982, she has established an active research program on the utilization of Nurse Practitioners in institutional long-term care, for which she received the American College of Health Care Administrators Long-Term Care Research Award.‘Her research has focused on health promotion, specifically physical fitness and exercise activity of older adults, as well as the application of a wandering technology device for older adults with Alzheimer’s disease.‘She is currently Principal Investigator on a 3-year funded study from the Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Health Professions, Division of Nursing, Nursing Workforce Diversity (D19HP009221, 07-01-08 to 06-30-2011) and from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities:‘Workforce Development grant (2007-2010), for the Bring Diversity to Nursing project, totaling over \(1M.'She was a Co-Investigator on a 5-year, \)3.5M National Institutes of Health, NIOSH-funded study on “Health Disparities Among Healthcare Workers,” where she led the qualitative case study research effort in two nursing homes.‘Dr. Melillo has over 70 peer-reviewed publications.‘She is a manuscript reviewer for a number of journals, including Geriatric Nursing, and is an Editorial Advisory Board member for the Journal of Gerontological Nursing.‘She is an abstract reviewer for the Gerontological Society of America, National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.‘Since 2008, she has served as an Expert Panel member on the American Academy of Nursing/Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing, Geropsychiatric Nursing Core Competency Workgroup and on the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing’s, Transitioning to Adult-Gerontology APRN Education:‘Ensuring the APRN Workforce is Prepared to Care for Older Adults, NP Expert Panel.‘She is active in a number of national professional associations, state task forces, and local Boards, including D’Youville Senior Care.‘She is Past-President of the Eta Omega Chapter, Sigma Theta Tau International, the Honor Society of Nursing.’

Dr. Susan Crocker Houde is a Professor in the Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, serves as Associate Dean of the’School of Health and Environment and was the Associate Director of the Division of Aging of The Center for Health and Disease Research. She teaches courses in gerontology, research, and primary care of the adult. She has a Masters degree in gerontological nursing and a doctoral degree in social policy with a focus on health policy and aging from Brandeis University. Dr. Houde is certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as an Adult Nurse Practitioner. She is a member of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties where she has served on the Education Committee and contributed to task forces in the development of national standards for gerontological, family, and adult nurse practitioner programs, preceptor guidelines, and curriculum guidelines. She is a member of the Gerontological Society of America and Sigma Theta Tau International. She has presented numerous posters and papers in gerontology to national organizations. Research interests include family caregiving of older adults with dementia, prevention of age-related vision loss in the older adult, and physical activity in older adults, and she has had papers published on these topics in the Journal of Gerontological Nursing, the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Research in Nursing and Health, Clinical Excellence for Nurse Practitioners and The Nurse Practitioner. She was a co-Principal Investigator on a funded research study that explored the relationship between nutritional intake and blood levels of antioxidants important in preventing and delaying the progression of age-related macular degeneration in older adults. Dr. Houde edited Vision Loss in Older Adults (2007) with Springer Publishing.Dr. Houde is a Gerontological Research Scholar with the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing and has served as an Alumnae Colleague for the Institute. She serves as a public policy editor for the Journal of Gerontological Nursing and is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, Quality of Life Research, Geriatric Nursing and Journal of Advanced Nursing.