Overview
Dr. Cooley is an oncology nurse scientist whose research improves cancer care delivery with digital health tools, clinical decision support, and behavioral interventions. Much of her work focuses on lung cancer. She developed and tested clinical decision support for guideline-based symptom management that has been integrated into the electronic health record. This work began with computable algorithms and progressed to a group randomized trial in thoracic oncology. Through two NCI Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards with Elimu Informatics, her team developed CDS-Sx, a sustainable, scalable platform that translates national clinical practice guidelines into decision support within the electronic health record. The work has been recognized as an innovative way to bring population-based symptom management to the front lines of cancer care. She has also developed multiple risk-reduction interventions for smoking cessation, physical activity, nutrition, and cancer screening.
Her current work focuses on lung cancer screening in primary care. With funding from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)/AstraZeneca, she led the co-design of patient-centered clinical decision support tools with primary care providers, patients, and other stakeholders. The tools are integrated into the electronic health record and include a tobacco use questionnaire that patients complete through the patient portal, lung cancer screening education, best practice alerts about screening eligibility, shared decision-making materials, and order sets.
She also led a study, funded by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), of a digital intervention that uses video-call smoking cessation counseling, personal stories, and a decision aid to help high-risk adults quit smoking and consider lung cancer screening. Her research has been continuously funded by multiple sources, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI), beginning with her NCI K07 Career Development Award in behavioral oncology. Other funders include the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the AACR, the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, and NCCN/AstraZeneca.
Dr. Cooley is also a Senior Nurse Scientist at the Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care Services at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. There she is Associate Director of the Intervention Development and Implementation Core within the Precision Health Symptom Science Program. She chairs the Cancer Care Delivery Research Committee for NRG Oncology and serves on the NCI Cancer Care Delivery Research Steering Committee.
She is a frequent reviewer for NCI study sections. Before becoming a researcher, she practiced as an oncology clinical nurse specialist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She then worked as an adult nurse practitioner and coordinator of the Lung Tumor Clinic at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Before joining Northeastern, she was a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. There she co-directed a postdoctoral program in cancer nursing and health disparities, a partnership between the university and Dana-Farber. She mentors faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students in intervention research, grant writing, and scientific dissemination.
Areas of Expertise
PRIMARY: Cancer care delivery, clinical decision support, digital health, cancer symptom management, lung cancer, multiple lifestyle risk reduction interventions
SECONDARY: Cancer care delivery research, clinical decision support, intervention development, lung cancer screening, survivorship, digital health, tobacco treatment, randomized and pragmatic trials, mixed methods research, implementation science, mentorship
Research Interests
Cancer care delivery research, clinical decision support, intervention development, lung cancer screening, survivorship, digital health, tobacco treatment, randomized and pragmatic trials, mixed methods research, implementation science, mentorship
Selected Publications
Cooley ME, Kim SS, Xiong N, Heiling H, Mazzola E, Nayak MM, DeMarco R, Borondy-Kitts A, Underhill M, Healey MJ, Yang CJ, Lathan C, Castaldi PJ. Clearing the air: Empowering high-risk adults with digital tools for smoking cessation and lung cancer screening adoption. Lung Cancer. 2025 Aug;206:108647. doi: 10.1016/j.lungcan.2025.108647. PMID: 40669310.
Cooley ME, Lenert LA, Abrahm JL, Lobach DF. Using data-driven clinical decision support to integrate precision cancer symptom management into the electronic health record. Semin Oncol Nurs. 2025 Aug;41(4):151937. doi: 10.1016/j.soncn.2025.151937. PMID: 40675875.
Nayak MM, Mazzola E, Jaklitsch MT, Drehmer JE, Nabi-Burza E, Bueno R, Winickoff JP, Cooley ME. Effectiveness of a computer-facilitated intervention on improving provider delivery of tobacco treatment in a thoracic surgery and oncology outpatient setting: A pilot study. Tob Induc Dis. 2024;22. doi: 10.18332/tid/186272. PMID: 38650848.
Cooley ME, Mazzola E, Xiong N, Hong F, Lobach DF, Braun IM, Halpenny B, Rabin MS, Johns E, Finn K, Berry D, McCorkle R, Abrahm JL. Clinical decision support for symptom management in lung cancer patients: A group RCT. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2022 Apr;63(4):572-580. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2021.12.006. PMID: 34921934.
Cooley ME, Blonquist TM, Hong F, Nayak MM, Crouter SE, Hayman LL, Jaklitsch MT, Emmons KM, Bueno R. The effect of a lifestyle risk reduction intervention on lifestyle adherence and health-related quality of life in nonsmall cell lung cancer survivors: Feasibility study outcomes. Psychooncology. 2019 Apr;28(4):920-923. doi: 10.1002/pon.5002. PMID: 30673155.
Selected Public Service
- National Cancer Institute Study Section: Health Services and Systems: Career Development Grant Review Meeting
- National Cancer Institute Study Section: Scaling-up and Maintaining Evidence-based Interventions to Maximize Impact on Cancer Tobacco Use and Lung Cancer Screening
- National Cancer Institute SBIR/STTR Study Section: Small Business: Clinical Care and Health Interventions
- National Cancer Institute Cancer Care Delivery Steering Committee
