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Biography
Sharon Kozachik, PhD, MSN, RN, FAAN is an Associate Professor who teaches in the PhD and DNP programs. She received an Associate Degree in nursing (ADN) from Lansing Community College, a Baccalaureate Degree in nursing (BSN) from the University of Michigan-Flint, a Master’s Degree in nursing (MSN) from Michigan State University, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) from the Johns Hopkins University.
Sharon is a first-generation college graduate whose love for symptom management, research design, and statistics was cultivated at Michigan State University, and then nurtured at Johns Hopkins. She is dedicated to educating the next generation of care providers to ethically address the complex challenges of pain – in the context of our current opioid crisis – and has taught medical and nursing students the art and science of pain assessment and neurobiology, respectively. She has received excellence in teaching awards from the Maryland Nurses Association and the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association.
Sharon’s research interests include the bi-directional relationship between sleep perturbations and pain and the role of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress responsivity and proinflammatory cytokines in precipitating and perpetuating pain and sleep disturbance co-occurrence, as well as the consequences of early life pain on depression, sleep architecture, and pain perception outcomes. Her research has been funded by the American Nurses Foundation, the Oncology Nursing Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. Sharon is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, where she served the past 5 year as vice chair and then chair of the Palliative & End of Life Care Expert Panel.
Sharon served the greater academy as a site evaluator for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and through her work supporting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
Keywords: symptom management, pain, sleep, murine models, HPA axis, cytokines