Discovery Dialogues: Transformative Approaches to Address Health Disparities

May 6, 2026, 1:00 - 2:00pm ET

The NIH Common Fund’s Discovery Dialogues Webinar Series is designed to highlight groundbreaking NIH Common Fund scientific advances and program outcomes. Each session will spotlight research that is accelerating discovery, fostering collaboration, and expanding what we know about human health and disease.

On May 6, 2026, 1:00-2:00 pm ET, speakers from the NIH Common Fund Transformative Health Disparities (THD) Program will discuss innovative research projects to understand and reduce health disparities. They will present highlights, progress, and lessons learned from research projects aimed at improving health within their communities.

• Using Community Health Navigators to Advance Cancer Screening Adherence for all Americans who use American Sign Language, Poorna Kushalnagar, Ph.D., Gallaudet University 
• Community-Based Nurturing Care Navigation to Address Maternal-Child Food Insecurity: Preliminary Findings from a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial, Gabriela Buccini, Ph.D., MSc, IBCLC, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The webinars are open to the public. We invite scientists, trainees, and community partners to connect with cutting-edge Common Fund research. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.

Presenters

Poorna Kushalnagar, Ph.D., is Director of the Center of Deaf Health Excellence, Strategic Research Officer, and Professor of Psychology at Gallaudet University. An internationally recognized public health research scientist, she leads federally funded research focused on improving health outcomes among  deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing individuals who use American Sign Language, with more than $15 million in total support from the National Institutes of Health and over 100 peer-reviewed publications. She earned her B.A. from Gallaudet University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Houston, and completed NIH postdoctoral training at the University of Washington and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Since joining Gallaudet in 2016, Dr. Kushalnagar has advanced cross-disciplinary research and institutional strategy as Strategic Research Officer for the University.

Gabriela Buccini, Ph.D., MSc, IBCLC, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Public Health. A trained maternal and child health and nutrition epidemiologist and implementation scientist, she leads federally funded, mixed-methods research focused on infant feeding, food insecurity, and early childhood development inequities. Her work emphasizes the evaluation and scaling up of evidence-based interventions in low-income populations globally and in the United States. Dr. Buccini earned her Ph.D. and master's degrees in Nutrition in Public Health from the University of São Paulo in Brazil and completed postdoctoral training at the Yale School of Public Health; she is also an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).