Kurt Edward Freeman

1522 Sunset Rd.

Castleton on Hudson, NY 12033
518/479-5112 (H), 518/727-0061(M)
email: kffc196e@westpost.net

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
October 2007 to September 2009
Research Health Scientist (GS12-2)/Principal Investigator: Awarded one of eight
Veterans' Health Administration "Caregiver Assistance Pilot" (VHA2007-02) grants
($262K) to conduct a program evaluation of "Communicating Effectively with Heal
th Care Professionals: Evaluation of a Curriculum for Family Caregivers." This
randomized control trial assessed the curriculum's effect on health care communi
cation, caregiver self-efficacy, caregiver burden, family functioning, and patie
nt health care cost and use for family caregivers receiving the program as a 3-h
our workshop compared to those receiving the training as a self-paced DVD and wo
rkbook.
Accomplished the following: Certified as a Contracting Officer's Technical Repre
sentative, produced the DVD, trained project staff in principles of human subjec
ts research protection and practices of applied persuasion for sample recruitmen
t, achieved 86% of target sample, submitted final report to the Caregiver Assist
ance Task Force in VA Central Office August 2009. The intervention had a statis
tically significant effect on health care communication for family caregivers at
tending the workshop and those viewing the DVD, and yielded trends in the desire
d direction for variables measuring patient health care cost and use.
December 2005 to September 2007
Supervisory Program Specialist: Project coordinator for "A Telehealth Education
Program for Caregivers of Veterans with Dementia" (HSR&D IIR 03-076-1), Sratton
VA Medical Center, 113 Holland Ave., Albany, NY 12208. Supervisor: Mollie Shula
n, MD, 518/626-6031.
Accomplished the following: Coordinated data collection in adherence with requir
ements established by three VA hospital institutional review boards, recruited a
nd enrolled 160 family caregivers, administered informed consent for participant
s, performed initial and follow-up interviews, tracked participant progress to e
nsure measurements were taken as required by the research protocol. Performed ro
utine quality control and oversight to evaluate integrity of information collect
ed about participants. Gathered data and wrote reports for continuing and annua
l review submissions for the three IRBs as well as for the Combined Monitoring B
oard (CoMB).
April and May 2006
Research Compliance Auditor: Stratton VA Medical Center, 113 Holland Ave., Alban
y, NY 12033.
Assisted the Albany Research Compliance Officer, Linda Rodriguez, with audits of
clinical trials to ensure that documented evidence of IRB approved research pro
cedures were in place.
April 2006 to March 2009
Committee Member (Voting): Stratton VA Medical Center Institutional Review Board
, 113 Holland Ave., Albany, NY 12208.
Evaluated clinical research protocols for adherence to principles of human subje
cts research protections. Served as primary reviewer for social science protoco
ls.
May 2006 to December 2006
Domain II Team Leader, AAHRPP Accreditation: Research Department, Stratton VA Me
dical Center, 113 Holland Ave. Albany, NY 12208.
Assembled a team to determine the extent to which the documented policies of the
medical facility and research program adhere to the standards required by the a
ccrediting organization. Performed a risk analysis to identify gaps in operating
procedures so that policies could be modified of written to ensure that a syste
m is in place to ensure the protection of human research participants.
April 2003 to Present
IRB Member (Voting): Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.
Collaboratively developed the policies and procedures for research, as well as t
he Federal Wide Assurance. Evaluating faculty and student initiated research pr
oposals with regard to their protection of human subjects.
May 2003 to December 2005
Project Support Specialist: Healthy Families New York/Home Visiting Program Eval
uation, Center for Human Services Research, 135 Western Ave., Albany, NY 12222.
Supervisor: Rose Greene, 518/442-5774.
Collaboratively researched and designed a coding system to characterize the beha
vior of mother-child dyads as they interacted in a set of structured activities
designed to provide mothers with the opportunity to display their child-rearing
skills in a randomized-control study designed to reduce the incidence of child a
buse and neglect. Taught myself, and then other team members, the software (Nol
dus' "The Observer") used for the observation and analysis of behavioral data.
Created and maintained Excel database of observations. Cleaned and participated
in an ongoing analysis of data. Presented a hands-on workshop of the method at
the 2005 annual meeting of the Society for Social Work Research in Miami, FL.
Worked on a grant writing steering committee to set up a system that would allow
the Center to pursue multiple grants more effectively.
February 2001 to April 2003
Health Science Specialist (GS-0601-9): FairCare Research Program, Health Educati
on Program, and Communication Education Program. Stratton VAMC, 113 Holland Ave.
, Albany, NY. Principal Investigators: Joseph B. Engelhardt, Ph. D. and Ronald
W. Toseland, Ph.D. Project Director: Linda A. Rodriguez, M.A.
Recruited participants for above three projects achieving a success rate as high
as 66%; Wrote project promotional materials and recruitment script for FairCare
; Trained staff of the Center for Advanced Illness Care Coordination on recruitm
ent techniques; Cultivated relationships with clinicians to serve as a source of
referrals; Collaborated with Information Services staff to develop a procedure
for extracting potential participants from hospital databases based on ICD-9 dia
gnostic codes; Collaboratively adapted preexisting measurement instruments for u
se in the FairCare project; Developed and maintained an Excel database to track
participants' progress through multiple measurement points; Developed databases
for data entry and subsequent analysis.
January 2003
Reviewer: Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Health
Services Research and Development Services.
February 1999 to April 1999
Senior Focus Group Leader: Empowering the forecast consumer: An investigation of
 citizen need for, and the technology for communicating, process-centered weathe
r information. Primary Investigators: Robert E. Sanders, Ph.D. SUNY-Albany, Rich
ard Westergard National Weather Service, Richard Jesuroga, National Weather Serv
ice.
Lead focus groups in Bozeman, MT and Cincinnati, OH using a battery of questions
designed by the PI's.
December 1994 to December 1996
Research Associate: The Relationship between Children's Communicative Ability a
nd Social Competence, Robert E. Sanders, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Collaborated in the design of a semi-structured task intended to foster conflict
between elementary school children; Coordinated recruitment of research sites a
nd individual participants; Videotaped interactions between pairs of children; T
ranscribed and analyzed interactions. Collaborated on book chapter with P.I. de
scribing our results (see the list of publications at the end of this document);
independently wrote a conference paper analyzing strategic use of tag-questions
.
January 1993 to December 1998
Research Project Assistant: Communication Skills Training Program (1/97-12/98),
Family Visit Education Project (1/95-12/96), Validation Project (1/93-12/94), In
stitute of Gerontology; University at Albany, State University of New York. Prin
cipal Investigators: Phillip McCallion, Ph.D. and Ronald Toseland, Ph.D.
Interviewed participants for all three projects; set up system for organizing da
ta collected in all three projects; Developed an instrument, the Geriatric Indic
es of Positive Social Interaction, used in the Validation Project, and Family Vi
sit Education Project; Trained temporary Project Assistants on data collection a
nd management procedures; Wrote SPSS data definition files for mainframe environ
ment; Independently basic descriptive and inferential statistics for all three p
rojects; Assisted staff statistician on data runs using a random regression proc
edure; Wrote the Methods section for the final reports for all three projects
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
January 1999 to December 2000
Adjunct Instructor: Communications 251: Interpersonal Communications, Sage Eveni
ng College & Sage Junior College of Albany.
September to December 1999
Adjunct Instructor: Communication 298: Introduction to Communication Theory. Co
llege of Saint Rose, Albany, NY.
September to December 1994
Adjunct Instructor: Communication 141, Interpersonal Communication. College of
Saint Rose, Albany, NY.
January 1992 to May 1992
Teaching Associate: COM 100Y, Introduction to Human Communication: Behavior, Cod
es, and Social Action. University at Albany, State University of New York. Stu
art J. Sigman, Faculty Supervisor.
Summer 1992, Summer 1991, Summer 1990, Spring 1989, Fall 1989, Fall 1988 Instruc
tor: COM 203, Speech Composition and Presentation, University at Albany, State U
niversity of New York.
Fall 1987 through Spring 1989
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Department of Communication, University at Albany,
State University of New York.

CONSULTING EXPERIENCE
December 1998 and January 1999
Consultant: Public Speaking, Americorps/JobCorps.
May 1998 to January 1999
Consultant: SPSS programming and statistics on project concerned with case-relat
ed perceptions of physicians and social workers. Clients: Dr. Julie Abramson, S
UNY-Albany and Dr. Terry Mizrahi, Hunter College.
August 1996
Consultant: Statistics and SPSS programming for M.A. Thesis concerned with impac
t of negative campaigning on voters' attitudes. Client: Denyce Duncan-Lacy, Dir
ector of Public Relations, Public Employees Federation.

EDUCATION
Ph.D. (Candidate), Sociology
University at Albany, State University of New York. Specializing in interperson
al/intercultural communication and social psychology. Dissertation topic: Seekin
g patient participation in counseling and education programs: A study of talk-in
-interaction.
M.A., Communication (1992)
University at Albany, State University of New York. Emphasis on interpersonal/
intercultural communication. Thesis: Discourse structure and resource distributi
on: Emotion-label use in conversations between children and teachers in a daycar
e center.
BA, Communication (1986)
Pennsylvania State University.
ACADEMIC HONORS
1992
Phillip K. Tompkins Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Research.
1988
Berman Scholar: International Society for General Semantics. Competitively awar
ded $3000.00 to conduct the research that led to the M.A. thesis.
PUBLICATIONS
Sanders, R.E. & Freeman, K.E. (1997). "Children's neo-rhetorical participation
in peer interactions." In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (Eds.), Children and socia
l competence: Arenas of action. England: Falmer.
Toseland, R., Diehl, M., Freeman, K., Manzanares, T., Naleppa, M., & McCallion,
P. (1997). "The impact of Validation Group Therapy on nursing home residents wi
th dementia." Journal of Applied Gerontology, 16(1), pp. 31-50.
Freeman, K. E. (1992). "The discursive negotiation of emotion: A case study of
conversations between children and teachers in a daycare center," in Introductio
n to Human Communication: Behavior, Codes, and Social Action. Stuart J. Sigman
with Kurt E. Freeman (Eds.), Ginn Press, Needham Heights, MA.
----------------- (1991). "Berman scholar," Et cetera, 48 (1): 51 54.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Observational Methodology for Parent-Child Interaction: A Hands-On Workshop. Lyn
n Videka, Deborah Reyome, Kurt Freeman, Monica Rodriguez, Rose Greene, and Ann L
owenfels. Presented to the Society for Social Work Research in Miami, FL, Janua
ry 2005
Tag questions can be used strategically, right?: Power hidden in "powerless" for
ms. Presented to the Language and Social Interaction Division of the Internatio
nal Communication Association's Annual Conference, May, 1996, Chicago, Illinois.
Children's neo-rhetorical participation in peer interactions: On communicative d
evelopment and social competence. Robert E. Sanders and Kurt E. Freeman (1995).
Presented at the conference on Children and Social Competence, University of S
urrey (U.K.), 5-7 July 1995.
Discourse structure and resource distribution: Emotion label use in conversation
s of preschool children and their teachers. Presented to the Interpersonal/ Orga
nizational Communication Interest Group at the 1992 Eastern Communication Associ
ation Annual Convention in Portland, Maine.