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I'm proud to offer assistance in designing and conducting ethical research, Institutional Review Board (IRB) application preparation and monitoring, and research ethics consulting and teaching services. I'm passionate about research ethics because too many people have been harmed by the traditional model of research, which grew from the soil of oppression, white supremacy, ableism and patriarchy. There's still many reasons not to trust researchers, and we still have a long way to go towards true equity, inclusion and justice within the research establishment.  

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As a researcher, I've collaborated extensively with historically and currently oppressed communities (many of whom meet the regulatory definition of vulnerable populations), and so I am acutely attuned to the power imbalances inherent in research - and how we can right them. And as my dog and anyone who ever had the misfortunate of sitting next to me at dinner can attest, I am committed to envisioning and creating a better model. The research model of the future is expanded to prioritize equity, action and the full inclusion of people who in the past were only ever included as passive "subjects" of research. I spend quite a lot of time thinking about voice and justice in research, and I'm good at operationalizing these abstract concepts.

 

I'm uniquely positioned to support you in building trusting, mutually beneficial research relationships, designing and conducting ethical research, and obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. My research ethics services are focused on helping you create and feel comfortable using research practices that both satisfy IRB requirements and also meet community priorities and needs - research that brings us closer that that better, more equitable, more inclusive future.

 

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Services and Strengths Include:

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**Preparation or review and editing of initial IRB applications, modifications and additions

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**Individual and group consulting and educational sessions about research ethics, in general and related to specific topics, brainstorming about ethical answers to current challenges, and/or your current or planned research project

 

**Ethical research design consulting, including addressing ethical challenges, forging meaningful, ethical partnerships, best practices in ethical research, and ethical, non-coercive involvement of "vulnerable populations", including those deemed "decisionally impaired" or otherwise in need of additional protections - I'm expert in research ethics with these populations.

 

**Assistance building trusting, equitable relationships with communities, research participants and potential research participants, including creating stakeholder advisory boards, facilitating "mixed" (researchers and community members) meetings, training and supporting community researchers and citizen scientists in the research process, training and supporting researchers in co-learning and ethical partnership, facilitating collaborative data collection and analysis, and otherwise helping to facilitate relationships

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**Development of accessible, audience-appropriate informed consents using a variety of formats (video-based, pictorial, plain language and others), conveying complex ideas in plain language to enable true decision making.

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**Special experience in working with IRBs around newer methods, such as Photo Voice, that raise additional human subjects protection concerns

 

**Expertise in research ethics with "special", "vulnerable" and "decisionally impaired" participants and populations. I was recently awarded an innovator's grant to develop a video-based human subjects protection training course for community researchers with intellectual disabilities, and have extensive experience in participatory action research ethics.

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** Lead author on a recent publication in the Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities about researchers' ethical obligation to address the epidemic of sexual violence against people with intellectual disabilities. The article outlines a protocol I created for responding to disclosures of sexual violence by research participants/in a research context. It has been used by researchers and state agencies and is informed by my background as a survivor and reproductive justice activist, as well as my research expertise.

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