PSU History
Dr. Nicolaidis joined PSU in January 2013 to serve as Professor in the School of Social Work and to direct the Social Determinants of Health Initiative at PSU.
Experience
As a general internist and health services researcher, Dr. Nicolaidis uses participatory research to improve the health and healthcare of marginalized populations. The majority of her current research projects focus on autism in adulthood and neurodiversity. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE; www.aaspire.org), an international academic-community partnership that uses community-based participatory research to address the priorities of autistic adults. She has led a series of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded studies on health care for autistic adults and has created the AASPIRE Healthcare Toolkit (www.autismandhealth.org) for use in primary care settings. She is currently leading a large NIMH-funded R01 project to develop and test a set of accessible, patient-reported outcome measures for autistic adults. She also is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal, Autism in Adulthood (www.liebertpub.com/aut). More broadly, Dr. Nicolaidis works to improve health equity and address social determinants of health. She directs the Social Determinants of Health Initiative (www.pdx.edu/social-determinants-health), which brings together individuals from Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, community organizations, governmental agencies, and local health systems to improve health equity. She has led or collaborated on dozens of externally-funded projects on intimate partner violence, racial health equity, chronic pain, substance use disorders, and health system transformation. She has authored over 100 publications and has mentored dozens of students, trainees, and faculty members. Dr. Nicolaidis teaches research methods in the School of Social Work at Portland State University (PSU) and teaches and practices internal medicine at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).
Academic/Research Interests
Autism in adulthood; disability justice; health equity; community-based participatory research; deployment-focused intervention development and evaluation; mixed methods research; survey development and psychometrics.
Personal Interests
Dr. Nicolaidis loves traveling. When home in the Pacific Northwest, she spends most of her free time with her family enjoying local theater, dance, movies, cooking, and the outdoors.