Maria Venegas, PhD

Assistant Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

I am a medical anthropologist with extensive experience and expertise in qualitative health research in Latin America and among Latinos in the United States. Drawing on my anthropological and public health background, my primary research interests focus on the lived experience of mental illness and ethnographic informed studies of technologies of care (m-health and telehealth) for the management of mental illness among economically disadvantaged and minority populations. My long-term goal is to become an expert on mental health care service delivery for diverse racial and economic underserved populations. I believe that an ethnographic and mixed method approach to mental health research can provide meaningful insights to the conditions of suffering, the context of mental illness experience, and strategies for recovery and improving mental health treatment among ethnic and racial minority groups.

Publications

  • Published 10/1/2023

    Gately ME, Metcalf EE, Waller DE, McLaren JE, Chamberlin ES, Hawley CE, Venegas M, Dryden EM, O'Connor MK, Moo LR. Caregiver Support Role in Occupational Therapy Video Telehealth: A Scoping Review. Top Geriatr Rehabil. 2023 Oct; 39(4):253-265. PMID: 37901356.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 3/1/2022

    Venegas MD, Brooks JM, Myers AL, Storm M, Fortuna KL. Peer Support Specialists and Service Users' Perspectives on Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security of Digital Mental Health. IEEE Pervasive Comput. 2022 Apr-Jun; 21(2):41-50. PMID: 35814864.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 11/30/2021

    Storm M, Venegas M, Gocinski A, Myers A, Brooks J, Fortuna KL. Stakeholders' Perspectives on Partnering to Inform the Software Development Lifecycle of Smartphone Applications for People with Serious Mental Illness: Enhancing the Software Development Lifecycle Through Stakeholder Engagement. Proc IEEE Glob Humanit Technol Conf. 2021 Oct; 2021:195-199. PMID: 35005226.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 11/30/2021

    Fortuna K, Mbao M, Kadakia A, Myers A, Fischer D, MacDonald S, Brunchet S, Hintz I, Rossom R, Brooks J, Kalisa J, Haragirimana C, Storm M, Mois G, Umucu E, Almeida M, Rivera J, Zisman Ilani Y, Venegas M, Walker R. Peer and Non-Peer Academic Scientists and Peer Support Specialist Community of Practice: Stakeholder Engagement to Advance the Science of Peer Support. Proc IEEE Glob Humanit Technol Conf. 2021 Oct; 2021:188-194. PMID: 35498510.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 1/1/2021

    Venegas M. Grisi Siknis: A Cultural Idiom of Distress in Eastern Nicaragua. Transcultural Psychiatry. 2021.

View All 14 Publications:   View Full Profile in BUMC

Websites

Education

  • University of Pittsburgh, PhD
  • University of Pittsburgh, MPH
  • University of Cincinnati, MA
  • Boise State University, BA

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