Faculty Profile: Dr. Nicole VanKim
Dr. VanKim is a faculty member in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology
Dr. Nicole VanKim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology. Her work focuses on LGBTQIA+ health, health disparities, and social and behavioral epidemiology.
Q: Tell us about your research in LGBTQIA+ health.
I’ve been doing queer health research since my Ph.D. program. My first time working with sexual orientation data was during my time with the CDC as a state epidemiologist in New Mexico. I produced the state’s first LGBT health report. That served as a launching pad for me. I was able to combine my general interest in health with a community that was important to me. I came into public health really interested in physical activity work. Later on in my research journey, I began focusing on weight-related work, and that turned into nutrition-related work. In my post-doctoral program, I was able to combine all three areas and work on diabetes prevention. I was focused on risk factors rather than the disease itself. I did a study on physical activity and nutrition and how they relate to type 2 diabetes. We noticed that the story wasn’t coming together. We saw lesbian, gay, and bisexual women were more physically active and generally eating healthier than straight women but their instance of type 2 diabetes is astronomically higher.
That led me to the research I’m doing now. We always hear that in order to be healthy you need to exercise more and eat healthier but my research shows that it’s not working. My research focuses on the structural pieces that might be contributing to health disparities. Whether or not we are conscious of our experiences of discrimination, stigma, and bias, these experiences likely fundamentally change how we are functioning physiologically and that is the root cause of some of these health disparities.
Q: How have UMass and the School of Public Health and Health Sciences supported you and your research?
The queer faculty really comes together at UMass. SPHHS continues to add queer faculty as well. I’ve been here for seven years now and have had a lot of students of color and queer students. I always wanted to be able to provide that mentorship because I never had that. It’s been really rewarding working with students who I can relate so much to.
I specifically came to UMass because I wanted to develop my expertise in physiological impacts. That is something the faculty here have a lot of experience in. UMass not only has an emphasis on research but also on fostering student involvement in research. It’s something I never got to experience as a student at other institutions. I’ve really enjoyed all the different ways we can give students credit, whether that’s course credit, or salary support when possible. Getting to work with students and seeing them experience amazing opportunities is something really special to me.
Q: You mentioned the amount of support you’ve found at UMass. Why is that so important?
I do community-based research. I make it a point to include community members in the research process. Most of my students identify as queer. It’s important to them and they care about the community. Also, it’s important to me to support up-and-coming researchers from marginalized backgrounds. If they aren’t included, the research either doesn’t get done or isn’t done with the community. It’s a mutually beneficial experience to have people from the community working on this research as well as having members of the community have a better understanding of the research process.