Yulia Strekalova is CJC’s Director of Grants Development and a recent CJC Ph.D. graduate. And now she can add assistant research professor to her resume. Strekalova was drawn to academia because of her curiosity of how people make sense of health information. Her interest in how people understand health information started with a conversation that is still at the heart of her work today.

Yulia Strekalova is CJC’s Director of Grants Development and a recent CJC Ph.D. graduate. And now she can add assistant research professor to her resume. Strekalova was drawn to academia because of her curiosity of how people make sense of health information. Specifically, she studies how providers talk to patients and share information as well as how patients react or seek information.   Her interest in how people understand health information started with a conversation that is still at the heart of her work today.

“Before I entered my Ph.D. program, I had a conversation with a pediatric geneticist. He challenged me with a question that guided a lot of my thinking in the last four years and is still on my mind,” Strekalova said. “We were talking about the results of genetic tests and how they can provide valuable information for health management, and he said ‘This is all nice and well, but once you know something, you cannot un-know it. What do you do then?’ If a minute ago you didn’t know that you have an increased risk for cancer or a genetic mutation that could make your child very sick if passed on to him or her, what do you do? How do you not get paralyzed by this information? How do you manage the uncertainty of this knowledge and your own future? And, most importantly, how can information and communication among health providers, families, and patients be used most effectively to support those making decisions and not create additional challenges?”

While Strekalova will continue to work with faculty in finding and pursuing grants, she is ready to get to work with students. “Seeing how their thinking changes throughout a semester and how confident they become is truly rewarding,” says Strekalova. She is also working with graduate students and hopes to establish her own lab in the next few years.

Strekalova is also driving collaboration within the College. She is currently working with various physicians on research projects. For example, she is working with an oncologist who treats leukemia patients and faces struggles with communicating about uncertainties and information associated with treatment options.

Posted: January 6, 2017
Category: Faculty Profiles
Tagged as: Yulia Strekalova