Staff Profile: Amanda Venables, Senior Program Administrator
Helping others is in Amanda Venables’ DNA. From a young age, her “Nana” encouraged Venables to see the good in everyone, leading her to eventually pursue a career in rectifying healthcare disparities.
As senior program administrator for the Northwestern Primary Care Practice-Based Research Program (NP3), Venables has found ways to combine her years of healthcare experience with a passion for social justice work. The NP3 Program is designed to foster collaboration between community-based primary care clinicians and Northwestern scientists.
Venables has spent more than a decade with the Northwestern community and earned her master’s in Public Health in 2016 while working as a research project manager in General Internal Medicine. At the same time, she interned at a nonprofit called Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) at the Cook County Mental Health Court. She then worked in TASC’s consulting and training division, providing consulting services across the country.
“Not surprisingly, a lot of what I saw came back to the same social determinants of health we look at in research,” says Venables, of her work with TASC to improve access to mental health and substance use treatment for individuals in the carceral system.
Now that she's working with NP3, the skills she gained from her past experiences take on new significance. NP3 uses practice-based research to bring research into outpatient care settings to engage those who may not have otherwise had the opportunity to participate in a study. This includes Chicagoans suffering from homelessness, sexual and gender minorities, and children exposed to gun violence. NP3’s research strategies allow investigators to evaluate interventions in real-world clinical settings. Venables says that she’s been able to combine her research background from Northwestern as well as the consulting experience that she gained from TASC to ensure that academic, clinical, and community partners achieve their shared goals via practice-driven research.
I believe that quality, effective healthcare is a human right ... Northwestern has a tremendous pool of researchers developing treatments and systems that have the potential to greatly impact healthcare delivery and outcomes.”
Venables is most proud of NP3’s work to break down the barriers that sometimes stand between community members and their access to participation in research. She lauds NP3’s practical projects and collaborations with local practices: “I believe that quality, effective healthcare is a human right. There is a lot of scientific knowledge that never makes its way into practice. Northwestern has a tremendous pool of researchers developing treatments and systems that have the potential to greatly impact healthcare delivery and outcomes.”
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has hindered NP3’s ability to push forward some initiatives, the program continues to support Northwestern researchers and pediatric practices with their research goals via a longstanding partnership with the Pediatric Practice Research Group
In addition to her work with community organizations and partners through NP3, Venables is also the coordinator for the NP3 Seed Grant Program, which recently awarded $85,000 to four community-academic research teams.
“Practice-based research and community engagement take time and effort, and we hope these awards will help partners dedicate the time early on to creating research agendas and projects that can pursue additional funding down the line,” she says.
Venables often spends her non-working hours with her husband and her eight-year-old Maltese dog Murray, who has retained his puppy-face despite his age. She is also a Seinfeld superfan and often slips references to the ’90s sitcom into daily conversations.
Looking to the future, Venables hopes to continue providing research support to primary care practices and health centers. As for NP3, her goal is to see community clinicians generate research ideas that are responsive to the needs of their patients. She is optimistic about the program’s momentum and is excited to see what new scientific developments will come out of the community-academic partnerships that NP3 has formed.
Written by Morgan Frost
