McMaughan receives 2025 President’s Fellows Faculty Research Award
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Media Contact: Kirsi McDowell | Communications Coordinator | 405-744-8320 | kirsi@okstate.edu
Dr. DJ McMaughan, associate professor of public health in the College of Education and Human Sciences, was awarded the 2025 President’s Fellows Faculty Research Award on March 26 during the annual researcher’s reception.
The award is funded by a local grant program to support important and impactful research by Oklahoma State University faculty.
A tenured faculty member of the School of Community Health Sciences, Counseling and Counseling Psychology, McMaughan’s research project is titled Understanding the Relationship between Social Drivers of Health and Housing. The main goal of this project is to understand the interplay between social drivers of health and housing instability among disabled people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
McMaughan’s career focuses on improving the health and well-being of disabled people.
“After conversations with community partners, I realized that housing insecurity is an issue for disabled people with IDD, but very little research exists that addresses the issue. Most of the current research is based out of Australia and the UK. Conducting this research would place me among the few experts on housing instability and disability in the United States,” McMaughan said of the project.
As part of the award nomination, applicants were tasked with developing a proposed budget and timeline as well as research deliverables. McMaughan will be awarded a sum of $17,336 for the research.
Project outcomes will include plain language summaries developed for community partners and disabled people with IDD, presentation abstracts developed for peer-reviewed national and state professional conferences such as the American Public Health Annual Conference, the Oklahoma Public Health Association Annual Conference, and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Annual Conference. McMaughan will also create manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed academic journals on disability, health and housing, including the Disability and Health Journal, Autism, the Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness.
"I’m honored to receive this award, which helps us take important steps toward addressing housing insecurity among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” McMaughan said.
“My hope is that this project sheds light on the systemic barriers that contribute to housing insecurity among people with IDD. With this support, we can work toward ensuring safe and accessible housing is a reality for everyone.”
An expert in the field of public health, McMaughan is the Joan Donelson Jacques Health Promotion Endowed Professor and an accomplished academic with contributions to 49 peer-reviewed publications along with seven more under review, 36 published peer-reviewed conference abstracts, six published book chapters and one policy brief, and has served as principal or co-investigator in research projects with funding totaling $18 million.
Dr. Stephen Clarke, senior associate dean of research, graduate studies and faculty affairs for the College of Education and Human Sciences, applauded McMaughan’s effort toward removing the barriers that contribute to health disparities.
“Dr. DJ McMaughan is a leading scholar focused on improving the lives of individuals, families and communities through public health work,” he said.
“We are incredibly fortunate to have someone of their scholarly stature who is also an advocate for enhancing student engagement and promoting student success. I can‘t think of anyone more adept at integrating their research into instruction and daily activities as a faculty member.”