Primary tabs
Biography
Deborah Sellers serves as the Director of Research and Evaluation for the Residential Child Care Project (RCCP) in the Bonfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR). In this position she facilitates research and evaluation activities in RCCP by identifying new avenues for research, supporting the development of new proposals, monitoring and/or assisting with data collection, processing, and analyses, and writing manuscripts for publication. Dr. Sellers also oversees the data collection efforts associated with the implementation of RCCP's Children and Residential Experiences (CARE) and Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) programs.
Dr. Sellers has extensive experience in research and evaluation design, the design and implementation of survey research, and the analysis of quantitative data as well as data collection, processing, and analysis in substantive areas including chronic illness, end-of-life care, organ donation, adult and adolescent health promotion, and foster as well as residential care for children. Dr. Sellers has designed and directed both intervention and observational studies. The intervention studies include a group randomized waitlist trial of the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Schools program, a national multi-center evaluation of a community education project to reduce pre-hospital delay among persons experiencing heart attack symptoms as well as interventions to improve cancer pain management and to identify potential organ donors and support of their families. The observational studies Dr. Sellers has directed include an 11 wave longitudinal study of the quality of life and end-of-life decision-making of 300 adults with cystic fibrosis (CF) from 10 CF Centers across the country and a study of end-of-life care in pediatric intnsive care units. Dr. Sellers also participated in two studies of the views of research participants, patients, and clinicians about the sharing of genetic information when the information has implications for the care of the participant or the patients’ family and a study of the role of principal investigators of multi-center randomized clinicial trials.
Dr. Sellers graduated from Reed College in 1983 and completed a doctorate in Sociology with a specialization in research methods at the University of Massachusetts-Amerst in 1992 as well as an MS in biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1993.