Dr. Katie Clark (Augsburg University), Dr. Becky Davis (Creighton University), Dr. LeAnn Holmes (University of Nebraska Medical Center), Dr. Joyce Miller (Augsburg University), Dr. Margo Minnich (Creighton University), and I will work together from July 2022 to August 2023 on a mixed methods research project that explores the effectiveness of mission, vision, and value statements of our three universities and their doctoral programs in Nursing Practice in forming graduates whose value commitments and professional practice are aligned with these statements. We will collect data from students, faculty, and alumnae/i through interviews, focus groups, and sorting and rating.

Here is the abstract of the research proposal:

Together with Hsaw Reh and Hugh Truempi, I contributed a chapter to Giants' Footprints (2021), edited by Grodź, Michael and Schroeder, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Anthropos Institute. Our chapter, "Medical Anthropology and Mission: Health, Well-Being and Pastoral Ministry among Resettled Karenni Refugees in Omaha", discusses the centrality of research in medical anthropology among the institute's members and the synergy that exists between ministry and research, illustrated by exploratory research into the meaning and use of water among the Karenni in Omaha.

Transforming Lives: Health Initiatives in Faith Communities has been published by Lexington Books. It is based on a casestudy with faith community nurses and health ministers in Omaha, Nebraska, and argues that they and their programs in faith communities have the potential to become significant partners with health systems and governments in providing health services to communities.

I was invited by the Society for Cross-Cultural Research to give a keynote address during its next annual meeting, which is held in Seattle from February 26 to February 29, 2020. The title of my address is Embedding Cross-Cultural Research: Driven by Values, Rooted in Relationships, and Focused on Action. In this address, I argue that when researcher adopt liberation theology's "accompaniment" as an overarching conceptual framework for their scholarly engagement with communities, they place themselves into the lives and struggles of communities and develop interpersonal and reciprocal relationships with them that result in knowledge that inspires transformative action. The abstract of my address as well as of the other keynote addresses are available online.