2016 Nursing Research Grant Winner Announced
PCNA and the American Nurses Foundation have partnered to award a $5,000 grant to encourage the research career development of nurses. In support of the mission of PCNA, individuals whose research is focused on cardiovascular disease prevention may apply.
Dr. Baniak currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA as a Post-Doctoral Scholar in the School of Nursing at the University of Pittsburgh. During her undergraduate nursing education at Binghamton University, Dr. Baniak was awarded an externship at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Upon graduation in 2003 with a BSN in Nursing, Dr. Baniak spent 6 years in Minnesota between the Mayo Clinic and Fairview Ridges Hospital as a chemotherapy certified registered nurse. She returned to Binghamton University in 2010 to pursue a doctorate in Nursing while working as a clinical instructor. During that time, she also worked as a research assistant at the Clinical Science and Engineering Research Center which afforded her valuable experience in interdisciplinary research between nursing and bioengineering. After completion of her doctorate in 2015, Dr. Baniak was awarded a post-doctoral traineeship at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Baniak’s program of research involves understanding the inter-relationship between sleep, symptom management, and self-care in chronic disease. Her current research focuses on 1) the relationship between impaired sleep and cardiovascular risk and 2) the impact of impaired sleep on patient-oriented outcomes in veterans with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. She has been a travel awardee to national conferences including SLEEP and The Sleep Research Network and was awarded Abstract Scholarship by the Nursing Assembly at the American Thoracic Society. She serves as a reviewer for Clinical Nursing Research and has just been selected to run for a leadership position by the American Thoracic Society Nursing Assembly as Nominating Committee member.