Mays Basha

Biography

I am a PhD candidate in the School of Nursing. I am originally from Jordan and have a total of six years of experience working as a pediatric critical care nurse. Before coming to UW–Madison, I completed my master’s degree in palliative care in Jordan. My master’s thesis focused on the caregiving burden and quality of life among family caregivers of cancer patients. Shortly after, I came to UW–Madison to start my PhD, where my research program focuses broadly on symptom management in pediatric oncology. My work specifically seeks to understand the biopsychosocial factors that contribute to symptom burden in this vulnerable population. My goal is to contribute to innovative solutions that decrease symptom burden and improve the quality of life for children with cancer. I am currently conducting my dissertation study, which is a secondary data analysis of longitudinal symptom data to identify symptom profiles and biopsychosocial factors linked to these profiles among pediatric patients undergoing stem cell transplantation or chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy. During my PhD, I have worked as a project assistant in Dr. Montgomery’s research lab, which has helped me to shape my current research interest. Working on different projects also helped me gained valuable and advanced research skills that have significantly improve my expertise. I had the opportunity to contribute to both quantitative and qualitative research, including supporting data collection, recruitment, and conducting data analysis.