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Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Susan Loeb

Collaborator Spotlight:
Dr. Susan Loeb

Susan J. Loeb, PhD, RN, FGSA, FAAN, is a Professor in the College of Nursing and the College of Medicine at Penn State University. She earned her nursing degrees at Penn State in 1988, 1992 and 2002. She has also received numerous honors and awards, including being a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing since 2012.

Dr. Loeb’s signature program of research focuses on addressing the health needs of older incarcerated people with chronic conditions, including those in the advanced stages of disease, and extending through their end of life (EOL). Her expertise in multiple methodological approaches is applied to a series of studies including research, development, dissemination, and implementation of a toolkit for training prison staff in strategies to enhance geriatric and EOL care in prisons. This toolkit has more recently been transformed into computer-based training modules, referred to as “Enhancing Care of the Aged and Dying in Prisons.”

She is currently a Multiple Principal Investigator with Dr. Barbara Walkosz, Klein Buendel Senior Scientist, on a study funded by the National Institute on Aging where their team is conducting research and development on a highly interactive and media-rich set of prototype modules based on best practices in peer caregiving in correctional settings. This training is referred to as “Just Care.”

Dr. Loeb and Dr. Walkosz plan to expand their research collaboration into another age-related disease area: Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias. They hope to transform best practices in Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias care into media-rich, highly interactive, computer-based educational modules to prepare corrections staff and peer caregivers to meet the growing care needs of people who are incarcerated and living with cognitive decline.

Dr. Loeb’s research has been disseminated through more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous conference presentations. She has served as Principal Investigator or Multiple Principal Investigator on five studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and as Co-Investigator on two additional NIH-funded studies.

Keeping Research Moving During a Pandemic

Keeping Research Moving During a Pandemic

Dr. Susan Loeb, PhD, RN, FGSA, FAAN, from the Pennsylvania State University Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing – and an active Klein Buendel research collaborator – reflected on her research team’s experience in keeping research productive during the COVID-19 pandemic at the 17th Annual Custody & Caring Conference, November 4-5, 2021. The virtual conference was sponsored by the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. 

The cessation of face-to-face human subjects research by Universities and Departments of Corrections due to the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged researchers to seek alternative approaches for moving their work forward, albeit often not as originally conceived. Dr. Loeb’s presentation, and an accompanying award-winning poster led by Dr. Erin Kitt-Lewis from the Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing, reported experiences from the Inmates Care Project,an STTR grant awarded to Klein Buendel by the National Institute on Aging (AG057239; Dr. Susan Loeb and Dr. Barbara Walkosz, Multiple Principal Investigators).

The Inmates Care study served as an exemplar to demonstrate strategies and adaptions employed to forge ahead in modified yet meaningful ways despite a protracted public health emergency. Inmates Care focuses on the research and development of computer-based training to prepare incarcerated persons to assist corrections staff in caring for people who have grown old behind bars and are approaching the end of their lives in prison. Identification of barriers and facilitators, re-envisioning how the team would restructure their day-to-day work, and preparing for the future were a few of the essential steps that were described.  

Key Lessons Learned

  • Seizing the opportunity to make investments in team member development;
  • Writing protocols that detail both in-person and virtual options for data collection to allow the team to pivot quickly when the next challenge arises; and
  • Reaching out to brainstorm with funding agency program officers, Institutional Review Board analysts, advisory board members, and other researchers beyond the team.

Such initiatives can result in scientifically sound, safe, and pragmatic solutions to keep research productive despite public health challenges. Taken together, these approaches can maintain study progress and scientific integrity, as well as identify alternate ways to achieve study aims in a timeline necessarily relaxed, but as close as possible to the original plan.

Co-authors on the presentation and 1st Place poster included Dr. Erin Kitt-Lewis, Sherif Olanrewaju, and Leigh Casey from Penn State University; Dr. Valerie Myers formerly from Klein Buendel; Jeannyfer Reither and Savanna Olivas from Klein Buendel; and Katherine Aiken from the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.

In addition to the paper and poster presentation, Dr. Loeb was also an invited panelist on a Closing Keynote titled, “Reflections on Forensic Mental Health and Correctional Nursing.”