Chief Clinical Research Officer
UW Health/University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
For the past 30 years, Ms. Nugent has worked in clinical research in everything from drug discovery to epidemiology to all phases of clinical trials. For the past 16 years, she has focused on developing innovative methods to improve the efficiency and adaptability of clinical research operations. She consulted internationally on projects related to the worldwide opioid crisis for Health Canada, FDA, and the World Health Organization. Most recently she worked at Kaiser Permanente to build a standards-based program for the conduct of clinical trials. She has testified before the legislature on issues related to clinical trials accessibility and patient advocacy. Currently, Ms. Nugent is the Chief Clinical Research Officer at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and UW Health where she is engaged in culture change around clinical research integration, improving clinical research performance, and building a standards-based clinical trials program. During the early days of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic, Ms. Nugent lead a group of dedicated researchers at UW to start COVID-19 treatment trials within 2 weeks of the announcement of the global pandemic and provided consultation to groups across the country in how to accelerate the research process. Ms. Nugent is a Certified Clinical Research Professional through the Society of Clinical Research Associates. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Zoology from Colorado State University and a Master’s of Science in Public Health with a focus on Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Colorado.