Veronica Barcelona, PhD, MSN, PHNA-BC, RN

  • Assistant Professor of Nursing
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Overview

Veronica Barcelona, PhD, is a public health nurse and a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist. Her program of research interrogates the root causes of inequities in pregnancy and birth outcomes for pregnant people and their newborns. Together with her collaborators, she leads projects studying this problem, using a variety of methods including multi-omics and machine learning. One current project examines how DNA methylation mediates the association between racism and discrimination and adverse birth outcomes such as preterm birth. Another currently funded project uses natural language processing (NLP) to identify stigmatizing language in the electronic health records of pregnant people admitted for labor and birth at two New York hospitals. In this study, Barcelona and team are studying how stigmatizing language use differs by race and ethnicity for birthing people, and its associations with pregnancy-related morbidity outcomes.

Email: vb2534@cumc.columbia.edu


Academic Appointments

  • Assistant Professor of Nursing

Gender

  • Female

Credentials & Experience

Education & Training

  • BSN, Nursing, University of Michigan
  • MSN/MPH, Community Health Nursing and International Health, Johns Hopkins University
  • PhD, Epidemiology, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
  • Fellowship: Yale School of Nursing

Honors & Awards

  • Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINR), Protégé Award (2023)
  • Yale Office of Health Equity Research (OHER), Award for Yale Research Excellence, Yale School of Medicine, 2021.
  • International Society for Nurses in Genetics (ISONG), Founder's Award. Given in recognition of Excellence in Genomic Nursing Research, 2021.
  • Virginia A. Henderson Award for Outstanding Contribution to Nursing Research, Connecticut Nurses’ Association, 2019.
  • Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program (NELRP) award, DHHS, HRSA, 2002-2004.
  • Leadership award, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, 2001.

Active Memberships

  • International Society of Nurses in Genetics (ISONG)
  • National Association of Hispanic Nurses
  • New York Academy of Medicine (2024 - present)

Research

Grants

  • Principal Investigator, National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). “Epigenomic pathways from racism to preterm birth”, R01HD110429-01 (2023-2028).
  • Principal Investigator, Columbia Data Science Institute (2022-2024). “Using machine learning to measure racial/ethnic bias in obstetric settings”
  • Betty Irene Moore Fellowship for Nurse Leaders and Innovators (2022-2025). “Using machine learning to measure racial/ethnic bias in obstetric settings” 2022 fellows | Betty Irene Moore Fellowship (ucdavis.edu)
  • Principal Investigator, Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC) Seed Pilot Funds Program (2022-2023). “Epigenomic pathways from racism to preterm birth”
  • Principal Investigator, Columbia University School of Nursing Intramural Pilot Grant (2021-2022). “Stress and DNA methylation among pregnant Latinas in the EPI study”
  • Principal Investigator, National Institutes of Health, National Institute for Nursing Research, K01NR017010 (2017-2020). “DNA methylation, preterm birth, and blood pressure in African American children”
  • National Institutes of Health, Health Disparities Loan Repayment Program, National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (2018-2020).
  • National Institutes of Health, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, T32 pre-doctoral funding, Training in Global Reproductive Epidemiology (TIGRE) (2011-2014).
  • National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center, Fogarty Research Fellow, Minority International Research Training Program, University of Michigan Center for Human Growth and Development. Field research placement in La Paz, Bolivia (Summer 1997).

Media

Selected Publications

Bibliography: My Bibliography - NCBI (nih.gov)