July 18, 2018 | UHCL Staff
NASA Johnson Space Center tapped six new flight directors, including University of Houston-Clear Lake alumna Rebecca J. Wingfield. From JSC’s mission control center, flight directors lead teams of flight controllers, research and engineering experts and other personnel in support of space missions.
Wingfield, from Princeton, Ky., received a master’s degree in systems engineering from UH-Clear Lake in 2015. She joined the flight control team at JSC in 2007 as a contractor with United Space Alliance, where she oversaw maintenance tasks that astronauts perform in space. She later became a capsule communicator, speaking to the crew on behalf of the control team, and a chief training officer, preparing space station crews for their missions.
Before joining JSC, she interned at Kennedy Space Center while working on her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Kentucky.
She joins at least six other UHCL alumni who are serving or have served as JSC flight directors, according to NASA records. UHCL has graduated at least nine astronauts.
Help maintain the beauty of the UH-Clear Lake campus by volunteering at Habitat Work Days Aug. 7, 14, 21 and 28 at 9 a.m. with the Environmental Institute of Houston, 2700 Bay Area Blvd., Houston.
Volunteers meet in the North Office Annex and assist in upkeep on university grounds, including clearing paths, cleaning the pond and other conservation tasks. For more information, call UHCL Environmental Institute of Houston at 281-283-3950 or email eih@uhcl.edu. To learn more, visit www.uhcl.edu/environmental-institute.
Medical residents can gain a competitive edge in their field and position themselves for leadership roles. The four-week elective course takes place Aug. 6-31, Monday-Friday from 9 a.m.- 3 p.m. at Texas Medical Center, Suite 120, 2151 West Holcombe, Houston.
The course will provide participants with business training to navigate through healthcare management through case studies, interactive and collaborative exercises led by UH-Clear Lake faculty. Content modules include Healthcare IT, Economics and Policy, Team Building and more.
The fee is $2,000 for 20 sessions. To enroll and for more information, call the Center for Executive Education at 281-283-3120 or visit www.uhcl.edu/center-executive-education/center-services.
In an ongoing research effort to develop strategies to improve patient-centered care in veterans hospitals, University of Houston-Clear Lake’s Associate Professor of Sociology Jennifer Arney has teamed with researchers at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston.
Arney is co-investigator of a research team that has been awarded a research grant by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The study will take place at IQuESt (Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness, and Safety), a research center affiliated with the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine.
“In this grant, I’m studying veterans with advanced liver disease, which affects veterans disproportionately from the rest of the population,” she said. The grant she’s working on has several objectives and is “definitely a team effort,” she said. “I’m co-investigator with VA physicians Fasiha Kanwal and Aanand Naik, who are primary investigators.”
Quantitatively, the grant seeks to complete an exhaustive chart review of all veterans’ health records to develop a risk-prediction model to make it possible to stratify liver disease patients in groups based upon a low, moderate or high risk of developing complications or being hospitalized.
Arney will interview patients suffering from advanced liver disease to learn about their experiences with their illness. “I’ll be gathering data about what information they want from their doctor and how they want it delivered during medical encounters,” she said. “The idea is to find ways to help the patient and doctor work together to formulate a treatment plan that coincides with the patient’s own goals and preferences.”
The data she collects from patients, caregivers and doctors will be complied to create a “journey map” used in clinical encounters so that doctors and patients can better align their efforts to create the best possible treatment plan. The team will also develop educational handouts for patients and caregivers about liver disease, and materials to help doctors engage patients in conversations about their health goals and preferences.
Arney said she would begin interviewing patients this fall. “The grant is for three years, but I hope to finish my part of it two years from now,” she said. “I hope that after it’s done, we’ll have found ways to improve patient-centered care in veterans hospitals.”
