DISABILITY AND WELLNESS RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
DJ McMaughan, PhD
they/them
Dr. DJ McMaughan is a disabled scholar of disability and a health services researcher in Health Education and Promotion at Oklahoma State University. Their work centers on improving systems using a disability studies, critical health services, and community engaged approach. Through this process, they co-created and evaluated the STAR Kids Screening and Assessment Instrument, the Nursing Home Antibiotic Stewardship Guide, The Texas Transitions Toolkit, and The Standardized Antibiotic Use in Long Term Care Tool. They have published and presented community engaged research in peer-reviewed journals and national conferences and are an active member of SOPHE (Society of Public Health Educators), APHA (American Public Health Association), AAIDD (American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disability), and the Society for Disability Studies. They are an Associate Editor for Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, which was the first scholarly journal dedicated to community based participatory research, and the president-elect for the Oklahoma Public Health Association. The guiding principle behind their work is 'nothing about us without us'.
Abby Mulcahy, PhD
no pronouns
Dr. Abby Mulcahy is an Office of Academic Affiliations (OAA) Health Services Research & Development and AcademyHealth Delivery System Science Fellow. Abby completed their PhD in Public Health at Oregon State University in 2021 with a graduate minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Abby’s research interests center around where aspects of identity overlap and resulting healthcare needs, health care use, and resilience. Abby’s goal is to employ a positive deviance framework to identify what tools/strategies/resources make members of multiplyminoritized groups successful and to re-engineer these to improve health equity overall. Outside of work, Abby can be found on nearby hiking trails with their dog or with their partner at concert venues in the city.
Richard Alan Jones, PhD
any pronouns
Dr. Richard Alan Jones is an educator and researcher in the Integrative Biology Department at Oklahoma State University. Their research objectives center on the impact of technologies in the classroom, especially on people such as himself, who have disabilities. Dr. Jones is also interested in research aimed at mitigating barriers that negatively affect the educational opportunities of disabled people and increasing the accessibility and effectiveness of classroom instruction for everyone.
Virginia Vargas
she/her
Virginia is a psychology student at Oklahoma State University. She completed her medical training at PUC-PR in Brazil in 2009. Her internship focused on pediatrics, family, and community medicine. Her interest in research is aimed at health promotion and prevention of diseases using a holistic approach. Virginia's goal is to develop and deploy community-based strategies to maximize quality of life of community members focusing on social inclusion and access to affordable, quality healthcare. In her free time, Virginia enjoys playing with her kids, gardening, and taking a nature walk.
