I have been a registered nurse for almost 20 years, having graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1984. Since that time I have worked in the areas of med-surg, critical care and nursing education as well as graduating with a Masters Degree in Nursing in 1989. I am currently in my fourth year of study at the University of Massachusetts Collaborative Ph.D Program in Nursing. I am in the process of completing my dissertation, which is a secondary analysis of data from the observation study of the Women's Health Initiative, Worcester, Massachusetts clinical site. The sample consists of 1,780 post-menopausal women in Central Massachusetts. I am examining the relationship between psychological stress and the incidence of cardiac events. I will be presenting my initial descriptive findings in the form of a poster at the Eastern Nursing Research Society in April, 2004. I have been working with the methodology of secondary analysis for the past two years on a project as a research assistant in the Graduate School of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester. In addition, I also teach classes in Basic and Advanced Cardiac Life Support at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Department of Continuing Education. Upon graduation, I hope to return to nursing education and further develop my program of research.

I have been married for 14 years to my husband Wahid who is a gastroenterologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. We have two children, David, age 10 and Megan, age 9. We greatly value our leisure time and enjoying family life.