Kelly Buettner-Schmidt
RWJF Collaborative Fellow
Dr. Kelly Buettner-Schmidt
by
Marie L. Lobo, PhD, RN, FAAN
Kelly Buettner-Schmidt, PhD, came to the University of New Mexico from North Dakota as part of the first cohort of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Nursing and Health Policy Collaborative Fellows. Dr. Buettner-Schmidt earned both her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Science degrees with a focus on Rural Health Nursing and Public Health. She enrolled in the PhD in Nursing Program with a focus on Health Policy at UNM in Summer 2008.
Dr. Buettner-Schmidt is the first graduate of the UNM Nursing and Health Policy Collaborative program. Her dissertation, A Rural Tobacco Smoke Pollution Study, was conducted under the supervision of Drs. Marie Lobo, Chair; Nancy Ridenour; Jennifer Averill; and Mark Travers. Her dissertation was accepted with distinction.
Dr. Buettner-Schmidt has been involved in tobacco control policy work for more than 20 years. She coordinated Minot, North Dakota’s Stop Tobacco Access to Minors Program (STAMP) from 1992 to 2001. She has also been influential in passing a number of city ordinances to restrict the sale of tobacco and to create smoke-free work places and restaurants. She began this work in Minot and subsequently provided consultation or technical assistance at the community and state levels throughout North Dakota to assist in the passage of more restrictive local smoke-free laws.
Dr. Buettner-Schmidt has received grants and contracts totaling more than $500,000 for policy analysis related to tobacco control in North Dakota. She is currently Director of Minot State University’s Healthy Communities International, which conducts research and provides technical assistance and training.
Dr. Buettner-Schmidt has published a number of articles in lay and professional journals, newspapers, and newsletters on the effects of tobacco control policies. She has given a number of peer-reviewed presentations, locally, nationally, and internationally, on tobacco control policy. She also has written more than 20 publications for use by the State of North Dakota on tobacco policy and control.
For her dissertation, Dr. Buettner-Schmidt has completed the first randomized statewide study of tobacco smoke pollution in the United States. She sampled 136 bars and restaurants across North Dakota in a study funded by a grant from the RWJF Nursing and Health Policy Collaborative at the College of Nursing and the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy. She is the first student to submit her dissertation in the three-paper format. She has published a concept analysis on social justice and has both a methods and a findings paper under review at different journals.
Dr. Buettner-Schmidt is also the mother of three girls, Megan, Marlee, and Josie; all in college (Megan graduated with a bachelor’s degree this spring), and she has had the support of her very patient husband Joe as she completed her PhD studies.
