Kristen Clark

Kristen Clark, Ph.D, R.N. (she/her) is an assistant professor in the Department of Nursing at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Dr. Clark began teaching at UNH as an adjunct instructor in 2019 and began her role as an assistant professor in 2021. Dr. Clark’s research stemmed from her experience working as a psychiatric nurse. Her program of research focuses on the multi-level sources of stigma and its relationship with healthcare access and mental health outcomes among transgender and gender diverse people. This project was the leading step to inform a qualitative study design and interview guide that involved interviewing transgender and gender diverse people admitted into inpatient psychiatric care. At the beginning of this project Dr. Clark was hopeful that there would be a wide range of literature that had emerged since her own time working in inpatient psychiatric hospitals, but, to her disappointment, little progress had been made. However, she was encouraged by Jaylyn’s ability to skillfully engage the scientific literature that was available. Having also mentored an undergraduate student for her honors project, Dr. Clark expressed that students don’t always get to see the variation in research and how that variation builds and impacts our knowledge. She believes that opportunities such as Jaylyn’s REAP project are a great way for students to learn about research options and be exposed to topics that they may not have had the inspiration to investigate on their own.