About our authors
The pre-nursing career of Matthew Sorenson, PhD, APN, ANP-C, includes experience as a recovery room orderly, paramedic and childcare worker and an initial collegiate major in history. His nursing career began with a BSN degree from Northern Illinois University (with a minor in history). After graduation, he worked primarily in physical rehabilitation, focusing on neurologic conditions and injury, an area in which he remains active.
He holds an MS in Applied Family and Child Studies (Focus on Abuse and Neglect) and an MS in Nursing (Community Health Focus). His doctorate is from Loyola University Chicago, where he studied stress-related changes in immunologic function in those with multiple sclerosis. Postdoctoral education includes a three-year fellowship with the neurology service at Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital (focus on multiple sclerosis) and a year-long fellowship in Disability Ethics through the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. He is an adult nurse practitioner. His time as a nurse practitioner is spent primarily with street outreach programs targeting the homeless and working poor.
His research focuses on immunologic correlates of fatigue, particularly in those with multiple sclerosis. He is currently funded to investigate viral epigenetics in multiple sclerosis. He teaches physical assessment, pharmacology, medical-surgical nursing and pathophysiology. Academically, Dr. Sorenson teaches at DePaul University with an additional appointment in the School of Medicine (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) at Northwestern University. He served as a program director for several years and was recently named Director of the School of Nursing.
Laurie Quinn, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA, CDE, is a clinical professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Science in the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Dr. Quinn earned her PhD from UIC in Nursing Science and has been on the UIC College of Nursing faculty for 20 years. Her primary research focus is the study of metabolic alterations associated with diabetes mellitus, especially their role in the development of cardiovascular disease. Her research has focused on examining the effect of aerobic exercise on the metabolic derangements of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
She is currently part of an interdisciplinary team from University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology and UIC that is developing an artificial pancreas. Dr. Quinn is a certified diabetes educator and worked as a clinical nurse specialist at Rush University Medical Center. She has received several awards for teaching excellence and has lectured in graduate and undergraduate physiology, pathophysiology and pharmacology classes. She has published and presented extensively in research and clinical practice venues on diabetes-related topics.
Dr. Quinn is an active member of the American Diabetes Association and American Heart Association. She has been a healthcare coordinator at an American Diabetes Association summer camp for children with diabetes for several years. In this role, she has cared for numerous children with type 1 diabetes and helped to educate clinical staff and students from various healthcare specialties on the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
Diane Klein, PhD, RN, earned a BSN degree from Loyola University Chicago and then worked as a nurse in the trauma unit and medical units at Cook County Hospital. During her clinical practice, she became interested in research, which led her to earn a PhD in physiology from the University of Illinois at the Medical Center Campus in Chicago. Her research interests as a faculty member at Loyola University Chicago have included the role of cyclic nucleotides in altered lung metabolism during septic shock, and the use of nebulized morphine in the treatment of dyspnea.
Dr. Klein was an associate professor in the School of Nursing at Loyola University Chicago, where she taught undergraduate and graduate pathophysiology courses for over 30 years. She believed that nursing students require a strong foundation in pathophysiology because it is the basis for their understanding of pharmacology and the rationale for clinical assessments and interventions. In addition to pathophysiology courses, Dr. Klein taught adult health clinical courses, pharmacology, advanced physiology for clinical practice, and stress in health and illness.
In addition to teaching, Dr. Klein presented topics related to pathophysiology at local and national meetings of both nursing and basic science organizations. Selected topics presented include resources for teaching genetics and genomics, problems of mechanically ventilated patients, biotrauma, effects of endotoxin and cyclic nucleotides on lung glucose oxidation, and oxidative stress in critical illness and therapeutic strategies.
