Kavita Radhakrishnan

Biography

Dr. Kavita Radhakrishnan received her PhD in Nursing Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She holds a Master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Electronics and Electrical Engineering. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania New Courtland Center for Transitions and Aging.

Dr. Radhakrishnan’s research applies current and emerging technologies such as telemonitoring, connected sensors, and digital gaming to facilitate chronic disease self-management. She has also applied a game-based intervention to motivate end-of-life planning among South Asian Indians. The long-term goal of her research is to develop affordable and scalable health interventions that enable ‘aging in place’. Dr.Radhakrishnan's research projects studying digital games for self-management in adults with cardiovascular diseases have been funded for over $6.8 million by the National Institute of Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and the National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health. Currently she is the Principal Investigator of two R01-funded randomized controlled trials that examines digital gaming and connected sensors to enable self-management behaviors for cardiovascular diseases. These trials aim to address health disparities in heart failure in southern U.S. as well as in hypertension outcomes among Native Americans. She has authored more than 50 articles on the subject which have been cited in publications from more than 30 countries. She has also taught content related to health information systems, nursing research and precision health science in undergraduate and graduate courses.

Dr. Radhakrishnan has served as an expert advisor on the American Heart Association’s policy task force on implementation of telehealth in cardiovascular and stroke care and is a member of the American Heart Association’s Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing Committee and the Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Committee. She serves on national committees for the National Institutes of Health and the Expert Panel on Informatics and Technology of the Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN). Dr.Radhakrishnan is a member of the Texas Department of Health and Human Services' Texas Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke Partnership. She also served as the Board Commissioner for the City of Austin Asian American Quality of Life Commission (2016-2020). Currently, Dr.Radhakrishnan is the Ed and Molly Smith Fellow at the University of Texas Austin School of Nursing.