Gay Thomas, director of Stakeholder Engagement for the Wisconsin Network for Research Support (WINRS) was honored in April with a Chancellor’s Academic Staff Excellence Award. WINRS is part of the federation of the programs allied with the ICTR Community Academic Partnerships group that provides assistance with stakeholder engagement to clinical and translational researchers. WINRS is headquartered in the UW School of Nursing, a UW ICTR partner school
Thomas is one of the creators of CARDS® (Community Advisors on Research Design and Strategies). CARDS is a signature program of WINRS that is comprised of focus groups of Madison community members from diverse racial, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds who are trained to give feedback to investigators on recruitment plans and materials, consent forms, survey or interview questions, smartphone apps, websites and more. CARDS has consistently outstanding reviews from investigators and research teams for constructive and effective critical review.
Read more about Thomas and her work as part of the university press release describing all nine 2018 winners of Chancellor’s Academic Staff Excellence Awards.