Ekaterina Burduli, PhD, MS, is an assistant professor in the College of Nursing at Washington State University, Spokane. Her research focuses on the birth outcomes of women who use substances during pregnancy and their infants and the development and implementation of novel interventions for perinatal women with substance use disorders. Dr. Burduli has over 40 peer-reviewed publications and has contributed to and leads several National Institutes of Health-funded grants, most notably a Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01) funded through the National Institute on Drug Abuse in which she is developing a mobile caregiving education tool for perinatal women receiving opioid treatment.

During her fellowship year, Dr. Burduli and her team will develop and evaluate a multifaceted implementation strategy to improve therapeutic alliance between providers and perinatal OUD patients. This will include a), a self-paced comprehensive online perinatal OUD care training course for health care providers, b), an adherence checklist to support providers in practice, and c), a skills-based competency assessment of application of knowledge in a simulated interaction with a patient with OUD.