Faculty Directory
Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing (MNSON) faculty members are experienced, recognized leaders in their fields who integrate research and practical experiences. MNSON faculty are clinically experienced and passionate about teaching - prioritizing personal connection and interaction with their students. Faculty members challenge students intellectually and guide them with compassion, creating a community of learning, research, and practice that values service, ethics, and providing top-notch health care.
Dina Tell, PhD
Title/s: Clinical Associate Professor
Specialty Area: Psychosocial stressors, including childhood adversity; social determinants of health; stress reduction intervention such as mindfulness stress reduction; statistical model for longitudinal data analysis
Office #: Lake Shore Campus, BVM Room 1011
Phone: 773.508.2907
Email: dtell@luc.edu
CV Link: Dina Tell CV 2022
About
Dr. Tell is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing. She received her PhD degree in developmental psychology from Loyola University Chicago and completed two post-doctoral fellowships in psychoneuroimmunology at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing.
Her first postdoctoral research was supported by a National Cancer Institute American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 supplement to R01-CA125455 grant (Drs. Linda Janusek/Herbert Mathews, Multiple Principal Investigators). That project evaluated the psychological and biological (i.e., inflammatory markers, cortisol, heart rate variability) response of women recently diagnosed with breast cancer to a laboratory stress paradigm in order to understand the mechanism whereby mindfulness-based stress reduction practice influenced the immune response. Dr. Tell was awarded a 3-year American Cancer Society Fellowship Grant, PF-12-261-01-CPP, to investigate the extent to which exposure to childhood adversity, neighborhood violence, and economic disadvantage predicted a proinflammatory cytokine response and increased risk for inflammation-related behavioral symptoms as well as an epigenetic link between childhood adversity and bio-behavioral symptoms in women with breast cancer.
Dr. Tell has actively engaged in a variety of multidisciplinary research projects (as a Co-investigator) at the School of Nursing. These projects examined epigenomic pathways linking social adversity and stress to health disparities in young African American men (MPIs: Drs. Janusek and Mathews); Race-Based Stress Reduction and Resilience Program for African American Women at risk for cardiovascular disease (PI: Dr. Saban); and reducing disparities in postpartum care (MPIs: Drs. Garfield and Tenfelde).
Dr. Tell is also interesting in innovative analytic strategies including growth curve modeling, latent mixture variable analysis, latent class/profile analysis and multi-level data analysis that allow for more precise ways to address complex research questions.
Research Interests
Dr. Tell’s research interests focus on understanding psycho-biological mechanisms of stress, particularly understanding developmental psycho-biological vulnerabilities and social determinants that negatively impact adult health.