Cynthia L. Russell PhD, RN, FAAN

Dr. Cynthia Russell is a Professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Rush University in Chicago, Illinois and her PhD from Saint Louis University. Dr. Russell presents locally, nationally, and internationally on a variety of topics related to her program of research, professional issues, evidence-based practice, research, and advanced nursing practice. She led a task force that published the Scope and Standards for Transplant Nursing Practice and the Transplant Competencies. She is president for the International Transplant Nurses Society.

Dr. Russell’s program of research focuses on self-management of chronic disease, specifically behavior change in those with kidney and heart disease. She is currently conducting an NIH R01 to test a SystemCHANGETM intervention to improve medication adherence, physiologic and cost outcomes in adult kidney transplant recipients and a Frontiers grant to pilot test this same intervention with older kidney transplant recipients. Dr. Russell’s research program has been funded consistently since 2002 in amounts ranging from $10,000 to $2,585,224. She leads two inter-professional research teams in dialysis and transplantation.