Member of Adelphi University’s 10 Under 10
Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University School of Medicine
“Adelphi laid the foundation for the work that I am able to do today and the impact that I plan to make tomorrow.”Dr. Jasmine Travers ’09 considers becoming a nurse to be one of her greatest accomplishments. “I have been able to touch so many lives—patients, students, friends, community members—through the research and clinical work that I have done and the knowledge and skills that I have acquired,” she said.
Currently a fellow in the National Clinician Scholars Program at the Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Travers is pursuing a research career that advances and implements knowledge designed to reduce health disparities experienced by vulnerable older adult populations. “My long-term career goal is to transform healthcare delivery for older adults through evidence, clinical practice, and health policy as a national leader in this area of inquiry and to serve as a mentor to other scholars,” she said.
Dr. Travers earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Adelphi, juggling her course work and athletics as a member of the women’s basketball team. Her first position after graduation was at Stony Brook University Medical Center, where she also pursued her master’s degree to become an adult-gerontological nurse practitioner. From there, she went on to enroll in Columbia University’s Ph.D. program. “My predoctoral work examined infection control and racial/ethnic disparities in influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations among nursing home residents. How I came to this topic was serendipity. Then, I was not interested in the older adult population nor was I interested in infections, I just cared about health disparities. It wasn’t long before I realized the importance of this work in an aging nation where supports for the older adult population are astonishingly insufficient,” she said.
In 2016, after successful defense of her dissertation, Dr. Travers started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) where she began her focus on health promotion and access and use of long-term services and supports for vulnerable older adults. There she worked on projects that aimed to understand and improve the quality of life for older adults across long-term care settings. In 2018, she is in her final fellowship at Yale University focusing on health policy relevant research and the care of aging older adults.
In recognition of her scholarship, leadership, ability, and commitment to transforming health care, Dr. Travers has been selected for several awards and honors. Her work has been recognized at the 2016 Gerontological Society of America Annual Scientific Meeting, where she was awarded the Behavioral Social Sciences Section dissertation award along with the National Health Disparities Conference where her conference abstract was awarded second place. She is the author of over 20 manuscripts on the topics of aging, long-term care, health disparities, workforce diversity, and infections and has presented her work at multiple regional and national health services research, gerontological, nursing, and public health conferences. She has also been named a 2017 Leonard Davis Institute Fellow of Health Economics at UPenn; a 2017-2019 American Academy of Nursing Jonas Policy Scholar; and a 2018-2020 National Clinician Scholar, all training fellowships where she was selected to participate in contributing to the shaping of practice, education, and policy.
Throughout her career and academics, Dr. Travers has also contributed to improving the health of the community through several service activities, including serving on the Pennsylvania Action Coalition Nurse Diversity Council where the focus is on, “increasing workforce diversity and preparedness in caring for a diverse population,” said Dr. Travers. She has mentored disadvantaged youth and underrepresented minorities with the iMentor program in New York City and UPenn’s Leonard Davis Institute Summer Undergraduate Minority Research Program. In 2014, in response to the Ebola Epidemic, she co-founded a non-profit organization with two other PhD prepared nurses titled, “Gloves4Gloves.” The purpose of this initiative was to sell custom-designed winter gloves in the U.S. in order to fund medical gloves for West Africa. Through a partnership with the Sierra Leone’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., Gloves4Gloves shipped over 30,000 medical gloves to West African communities most in need. Gloves4Gloves also provided educational programs for inner-city schools to promote the community’s roles in philanthropic charity and raise awareness of the need for a global force. Dr. Travers and her colleagues were awarded the 2015 Global Achievement Award by Adelphi University for their exemplary work.
Dr. Travers returned home to Adelphi several years ago, when the University first hired her as an adjunct faculty member—an experience that she has found especially rewarding. “Through teaching I have acquired several mentees, many of whom I still speak to today, that continue to amaze me by their brilliance, sincerity, and determination,” she said. “In this role, I truly am able to be a positive influence on the next generation of healthcare leaders, who will in turn impact the future delivery of healthcare.”