Faculty Spotlight: Joan M. Culley, Ph.D., MS, MPH, RN, CWOCN
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STAFF Q&A: Gene Meding, Program Coordinator for Faculty Development What exactly do you do? I handle many fiscal and operational responsibilities for the Office of Research, including travel and procurement duties. I assist faculty with web page development & maintenance, poster presentations, mock reviews, CITI training and IRB applications, & finding funding opportunities. I also contribute to the College newsletter each month & coordinate various Office of Research conferences and retreats. How long have you worked at the CON and/or USC? I’ve been at the University since 1994 and started at the College of Nursing in 1996. What do you like best about your job? I really like that my job is dynamic and evolving. I get to use lots of different skills on any given day. There’s never a dull moment and no chance to get bored! What do you do when you’re not working? My daughter, Brooke, keeps me busy carting her around town to various activities. But I’ve started teaching her to drive so it won’t be long before she has her license and then I’ll be spending my time secretly following her to make sure she’s safe! I also spend time caring for my mother. In my down time, I like to read, exercise, and hang out with family and friends. Tell us something people may not know about you. I published a novel the year my daughter was born. I haven’t had a spare minute to write ever since! Maybe once she’s grown I’ll have time to work on the sequel.
Dr. Culley is an expert in the application of informatics to emergency preparedness, mass casualty triage model validation, and medical outcome measures. Dr. Culley’s primary research focuses on the challenges of efficiently and accurately triaging patients in emergency department settings after a mass casualty incident involving toxic inhalation chemicals such as chlorine. The Graniteville, SC chlorine incident in 2005 was the impetus for this research. Her research team includes a strong and talented interdisciplinary team of co-investigators from University of South Carolina, the Medical University of South Carolina, Tulane University School of Public Health, and a diverse group of community partners. This team provides research expertise to better understand the information and processing needs of first responders during all hazards mass casualty events. Dr. Culley was the Principal Investigator on an R21 grant funded from National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine. This study was one of the first outcomes-level studies conducted following an actual mass casualty event involving a chemical incident to determine whether triage data from the four most frequently used adult triage systems correlate with patient outcomes. Currently, she is the PI for an R01 submitted to NIH/NLM that builds on the results of her first study to develop and validate a new triage algorithm for chemical incidents and a new informatics tool (ED Informatics Computational Tool [EDICT]) to quickly, efficiently and accurately process patients in emergency settings following a chemical mass casualty incident. Dr. Culley was the 2013 recipient of the College of Nursing New Investigator Award. She has worked in the field of emergency preparedness and disaster research for over fifteen years. Prior to academia, Dr. Culley was a Captain in the US Navy Nurse Corps where she worked on the development of a Risk Communication protocol for the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) and analyzed and piloted a vulnerability analysis tool for use in determining CBRNE disaster preparedness in Medical Treatment Facilities.