Professor Jennifer Kawi
Lee and Joseph Jamail Distinguished Professor
Department of Research
Jennifer Kawi, PhD, MSN, FNP-BC, CNE, FAAN, joined Cizik School of Nursing in December 2023 from The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Her program of research focuses on chronic pain and biobehavioral socioeconomic factors influencing pain, including self-management, pain care disparities, opioid use, pain interventions involving digital health care, and integrative medicine, specifically auricular point acupressure. She co-led studies with the late Professor Chao Hsing Yeh, PhD, RN, FAAN, who was a faculty member at Cizik School of Nursing.
Kawi earned her PhD from The University of Colorado College of Nursing in Denver, her Master of Science in Nursing on the family nurse practitioner track from UNLV, and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Saint Louis University School of Nursing in Baguio City, Philippines.
Assistant Professor Mustafa Yildiz
Department of Research
Mustafa Yildiz, PhD, joined Cizik School of Nursing in December 2023. He is a methodology researcher for the behavioral sciences who concentrates on measurement of human behavior. More specifically, he developed an item response theory application for his doctoral dissertation, and he currently works on multilevel models, latent variable models for longitudinal studies with caregiver populations. Apart from running analyses on large datasets, he also uses simulation studies to answer certain research problems. Before joining Cizik School of Nursing, he taught courses on measurement (both graduate and undergraduate level) and worked as a statistician.
Yildiz earned his master’s and PhD degrees in evaluation, measurement, and research from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and science education from Kocaeli University in Kocaeli, Turkey.