Kristina Jackson Behan Associate Professor Director of Clinical Laboratory Sciences Program   PhD Biological Sciences , Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA MT Jersey Shore Medical Center Neptune, NJ BS Biology, East Stroudsburg University East Stroudsburg, PA

Email: kbehan@uwf.edu
Phone: 850 474-3060
Fax: 850 474-2749

Personal webpage: uwf.edu/clinicallabsciences

Courses Taught

Diagnostic Microbiology I, Immunohematology I, Clinical Chemistry I & II, Urinalysis and Body Fluids I, Molecular Diagnostics, Introduction to Clinical Laboratory Sciences

Advisor

Medical Technology Student Association
Preprofessional Health

University Committees

University Personnel Committee
School of Allied Health and Life Sciences Advisory Committee

 

Research Interests

As a clinical lab scientist, I am interested in improving the quality of laboratory testing in human health. I use biochemical, cellular and molecular approaches to this.

Current Research

Currently, the lab is focused on two major projects, the disease Diabetes Mellitus and the bacteria Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). For the diabetes project, we are evaluating laboratory results for glucose and Hemoglobin A1c from patients who have normal hemoglobin, sickle cell trait hemoglobin, and other variants that are found in African American and Asians.  For the MRSA project, we are developing molecular tools that can be used as controls when screening patients to determine carrier status of the bacteria.

 

Selected Publications

Improving the Accuracy of A1c testing: Your help is needed.  Behan, K. LabMedicine 2008;39:389-393.

The Relationship Between Waist Circumference and Biomarkers for Diabetes and CVD in Health Non-obese Women, the Pensacola Study. Behan KJ. and Mbizo, J.  LabMedicine 2007;38:422-427.

Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia Due to Anti-HPA-1A. Da Silva, HB and Behan, KJ. LabQ 2008;Clinical Laboratory CL- 14.

Cessation of Menstruation Improves the Correlation of FPG to Hemoglobin A1c in Caucasian Women. Behan KJ. Clin Lab Sci 2006;19(4):225

Screening for Diabetes: Sensitivity and Positive Predictive Value of Risk Factor Total.Behan KJ. Clin Lab Sci. 2005;18(4):221-5.

Teaching Research Design One Bite at a Time in the MT/CLS Curriculum.  Behan KJ. LabMedicine 2007;38:582-586.

Learning Performance Characteristics with Style (Learning Style, that is). Behan KJ. LabMedicine 2005;36:6-9