ADDING DEPTH 

New professor enhances gerontological research

This past winter, Barbara St. Pierre Schneider joined UTA as a professor in the Department of Graduate Nursing. As the Endowed Chair in Gerontological Nursing Excellence, she brings with her an accomplished background of extensive clinical and research expertise, with work focused on skeletal muscle injury, inflammation, and recovery.

Dr. Schneider has spent several years studying how muscles recover after trauma. At UTA, she will begin examining how the recovery process of muscle injuries is affected by the aging immune system.

“My goal is to look at it from both perspectives: What’s going on with the muscle as well as how the aging immune system performs during this recovery,” says Schneider. “The immune system plays a key role in this process. Also, there are other opportunities to examine how the aging immune system influences the development of other aging-related problems, like frailty.

”Schneider is currently focused on establishing a lab and is looking forward to planning and conducting studies. In addition to her own research goals, she aims to enhance and strengthen gerontological nursing research in CONHI.

“There’s a lot to learn, but I’m so fortunate to have the resources available to continue my research at CONHI. I’m hoping there are more nurses here at UTA doing research in this area,” says Schneider. “Part of it is generating a pipeline of nurse scientists who have the skills to conduct physiological-type gerontological research. CONHI currently excels in multiple domains of gerontological nursing research, and I am confident we will continue to advance even further.”