Deirdre Green, a PhD candidate in the Occupational Injury Prevention and Research Training program, was recently awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) for the 2017-2018 academic year. The DDF gives the University’s most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year.  The award includes a stipend of $25,000, tuition for up to 14 thesis credits each semester and subsidized health insurance for a year.

Green’s graduate research focuses on health and injuries among janitors by determining the burden of injuries among janitors and how workload affects these injuries. The proposed objective is to examine injuries with particular attention to individual workload, using prospective survey methodologies and direct physical measurements of both sleep quality and workload. In the long term, findings from this study will serve as a basis for development of interventions that can be used to generate policies and interventions for safer working environments among janitors.

More information about the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship can be found here: https://www.grad.umn.edu/funding-tuition/ddf

Deirdre Green’s Research Project: Health and Injury of Janitorial Service Employees
Advisor: Susan Goodwin Gerberich, PhD