Research Concentration
Monica Roosa Ordway, PhD, APRN, PPCNP-BC, FAAN
After receiving her bachelor’s in physics from Fairfield University, Dr. Ordway earned her certificate in nursing and MSN from Yale School of Nursing. Dr. Ordway worked as a pediatric nurse practitioner and lactation consultant at an urban practice for many years before returning to Yale to obtain her PhD. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship under joint mentorship from YSN and the Yale School of Medicine (Psychiatry) from 2011-2013.
Currently, Dr. Ordway is an Associate Professor at the Yale School of Nursing and the Co-Director of the YSN Biobehavioral and Translational Research Lab. Her program of research aims to examine the biosocial relationships that underlie the association between adverse early childhood experiences and toxic stress with a specific focus on the role of the multidimensional constructs of sleep health in ealry childhood in buffering toxic stress in early childhood. Dr Ordway’s expertise includes various biomarker and objective sleep measurements in early childhood as well as community-based participatory research approaches that aim to reduce health inequities. She is conducting a randomized clinical trial to test the feasibility and acceptability of personalized, multilevel sleep health promotion intervention that she developed called Sleep Well, Bee Well for Early Head Start programs that is now being implemented in Bangladesh (NIH/NINR: R34). Dr. Ordway completed a K23 training grant (K23NR016277) from the National Institute of Nursing Research focused on understanding the relationships among sleep, stress, and health. She hypothesizes that sleep health may be a buffer to toxic stress in early childhood. This hypothesis is informed by her prior years of clinical experience as a primary care PNP and current practice as a PNP specialist at the Yale Pediatric Sleep Clinic that have given her a unique lens through which develop her research questions.
Dr. Ordway received a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health, NINR, for her dissertation research. She was a Zigler Fellow at the Edward Zigler Center for Child Development and Social Policy (2012-2013) and a Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar (2010-2011). She was awarded the Anthony DiGuida Delta Mu Research Prize in Nursing (2012) and named one of YSN’s 90 Nurses in 90 years (2013). She was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2023.
The Research Concentration is designed to further expose MSN students to nursing research and foster an interest in future doctoral study.
The concentration includes a seminar in which students learn how to review the literature and develop a preliminary proposal that can be used in their application to a PhD program. All students in this concentration enroll in two approved graduate-level Research Seminar courses, which include a research practicum (NURS 6150 and NURS 6160).
The research practicum allows students the opportunity to work on faculty research to gain research skills. The research practicum is an equivalent of 3 hours per week participating in a faculty member’s ongoing research (45 hours/semester). The faculty member will assist the student in preparing goals and objectives for the experience and meet with the student at a minimum of every two weeks for research mentoring and supervision.
Research activities may vary and include recruitment, preparation of study materials, data collection, data entry and analysis, preparation of applications for IRB approval, attendance at team meetings, and research-related poster/manuscript preparation. Practicum hours are flexible and can be completed during the summer. The concentration is open to M.S.N. students in their final year of study.
Questions or for more information, please contact:
phone: 203-737-5354
fax: 203-737-4480