Maria Venegas PhD
Voluntary Assistant Professor, General Internal Medicine
801 Massachusetts Ave | (617) 638-8000mdv12@bu.edu
Sections
General Internal 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.
Education
Anthropology, PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 2016
Behavior & Health, MPH, University of Pittsburgh, 2016
Anthropology, MA, University of Cincinnati, 2009
Anthropology, BA, Boise State University, 2007
Publications
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.
Published on 11/30/2021Storm 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.
Published on 11/30/2021Fortuna 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.
Published on 1/1/2021Venegas M. Grisi Siknis: A Cultural Idiom of Distress in Eastern Nicaragua. Transcultural Psychiatry. 2021.
Published on 5/1/2020Fortuna K, Cosco T, Inkster B, Myers A, Saunders C, Venegas M. Designing for the Human Experience in the Digital Mental Healthcare Ecosystem During COVID-19. 2020.
Published on 4/27/2020Fortuna KL, Muralidharan A, Goldstein CM, Venegas M, Glass JE, Brooks JM. Certified Peer Specialists' Perspective of the Barriers and Facilitators to Mobile Health Engagement. J Technol Behav Sci. 2020 Dec; 5(4):318-323. PMID: 33163620.
Published on 4/14/2020Fortuna KL, Venegas M, Bianco CL, Smith B, Batsis JA, Walker R, Brooks J, Umucu E. The relationship between hopelessness and risk factors for early mortality in people with a lived experience of a serious mental illness. Soc Work Ment Health. 2020; 18(4):369-382. PMID: 33442334.
Published on 6/20/2019Fortuna KL, Venegas M, Umucu E, Mois G, Walker R, Brooks JM. The Future of Peer Support in Digital Psychiatry: Promise, Progress, and Opportunities. Curr Treat Options Psychiatry. 2019 Sep; 6(3):221-231. PMID: 33796435.
Published on 10/29/2018Venegas M, Pepin R, Bartels SJ, Lyness JM, Sheline YI, Sirey JA, Smith GS, Bruce ML. Advanced Research Institute (ARI): An Effective Model for Career Development and Transition to Independence. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2019 07; 27(7):660-663. PMID: 30409548.
Published on 1/1/2012Koster JM, Venegas MD. Learning Aspects of Hunting Via a Conformist Bias Could Promote Optimal Foraging in Lowland Nicaragua. Journal of Cognition and Culture. 2012; 12(3-4):203-222.