Jamie Zelazny | School of Nursing | University of Pittsburgh

PhD, MPH, RN

Assistant Professor

Health & Community Systems

Profile

Dr. Zelazny has over 38 years of psychiatric nursing experience in clinical and research settings. She is an early career investigator whose research is focused on the use of technology to identify and manage suicidal thoughts and behavior in youth. She is the principal investigator of a R21 funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) entitled “Social Media as a Predictor of Proximal Risk in Youth Suicide Attempt”, which collects objective and subjective social media data to identify proximal predictors of risk in youth suicide attempters. She also serves as PI of a R34 titled “Geospatial and Ecological momentary assessment Technology and Activity Engagement (GET ActivE), which an NIMH funded grant within the NIMH funded P50 “Enhancing Triage and Utilization for Depression and Emergent Suicidality (ETUDES) Center. GET ActivE aims to develop a behavioral activation app informed by mobile sensing data and facilitated by a health coach to increase activities designed to improve mood in a racially diverse sample of at-risk adolescents. Dr. Zelazny also serves as co-PI on the ETUDES Methods Core study combining mobile sensing and social media data for the prediction of fluctuations in suicide risk in adolescents.

She is also a co-investigator on 3 additional NIMH funded studies: “The Role of Sleep Health in Proximal Suicide Risk among Ultra-High Risk Adolescents” (PIs: Tina Goldstein and Peter Franzen), a study comparing sleep-suicide associations and plausible affective, cognitive and arousal-related mechanisms using self-report, behavioral, lab task paradigms and physiology in adolescents at ultra-high risk for suicide; “Interpersonal Stress, Social Media, and Risk for Adolescent Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors” (MPIs: Nadine Melhem, Marta Pecina and Randy Auerbach), a study testing neural processes that increase adolescent susceptibility to negative social media exposures and identifying the pathways through which interpersonal stress resulting from negative social media exposures increases adolescent suicide risk; and, BRITE 2.0: A just-in-time adaptive intervention for suicide safety planning in adolescents, which aims to enhance the effectiveness of safety planning amongst at risk youth by developing and commercializing an augmented version of the BRITE smartphone app, which provides enhanced features to optimize effectiveness by addressing barriers to user engagement..

Dr. Zelazny is a co-developer of a supportive safety plan phone application for patients with high levels of suicidal ideation or recent suicidal behavior and a co-author of the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS). In addition to these research interests, she has a strong interest in bioethics, specifically the protection of human subjects in research involving technology and in research involving suicidal individuals.

Dr. Zelazny is the recipient of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) 2024 Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship.

Teaching

Dr. Zelazny teaches the undergraduate didactic course NUR1060: Nursing Care of Clients with Psychiatric Mental Health Problems. She was the recipient of the Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award in July 2023.

Service

Dr. Zelazny is a Vice Chair at the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board. She is a member of the APNA, where she serves as Chair of the Child and Adolescent Steering Committee, a member of the Research and Scholarship Steering Committee, the Scholarly Review Committee, the Awards and Recognition Committee, as a Research Grant Reviewer, and a Poster Judge. She is also the Chair of APNA’s Youth Suicide Prevention Position Paper Workgroup. In the past, she has served in leadership positions for Sigma Theta Tau, Eta Chapter and on the Board of Directors for Allegheny Health Choices.

At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Zelazny serves as faculty advisor for Pitt’s Nursing Student Association (NSA), AFSP-Pitt, and Oakland Outreach. She served as co-Chair for the Provost’s Year of Emotional Wellbeing in 2023-2024. She is a member of the University Wellbeing Consortium and is dedicated to promoting mental health and overall well-being among the student body.

In the community, Dr. Zelazny is an active volunteer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), where she serves on the Board of Directors of Western PA Chapter and as the Education Committee Chair. She regularly trains new presenters and provides mental health and suicide prevention education throughout the community. She also serves as the Pitt Campus Out of the Darkness Walk chair and serves as the AFSP Western PA Suicide Prevention Ambassador to the PA Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.