Mireille Chehade (she/her) joins the Florence S. Downs PhD Program as a full-time student from Lebanon. She completed her bachelor of science in Nursing at the American University of Beirut in 2015. Following her graduation, she started her nursing career as a Coronary Care Unit Registered Nurse at a Magnet and JCI accredited medical center in Beirut. In addition to her bedside nursing work, Mireille decided to enroll for her MSN degree on a part-time basis, aiming to acquire the advanced knowledge and skills needed as a clinical nurse specialist. Her MSN culminated in 2021 with her first qualitative research experience: a phenomenological study exploring the lived experiences of patients with ventricular assist devices (VAD) in Lebanon. Out of her research work, she presented two abstracts at the EuroheartCare ACNAP Congress 2021 and at the Heart Failure Association (HFA) Congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), with the latter receiving the runner-up position in the nursing Investigator award competition. Through a joint part-time appointment with the school of Nursing, she precepted nursing students in the clinical requirements of several undergraduate courses. In terms of research interests, she wants to build on her qualitative research experience and aims to work with mixed methods research. Mireille is determined to address the paucity of research in the context of Arab families. She is interested in improving the lives of patients with cardiovascular diseases and their caregivers in the Middle East and North Africa region.
