The Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences is stronger thanks to the organizational skills, innovation, and leadership of Helen Schuckers. As the Institute’s Dissemination Specialist for nearly 6 years, her accomplishments are evidenced by the many outreach and dissemination activities she collaboratively launched and maintained. Her passion for research translation and occupational and community health guides her work and inspired tremendous productivity.

One of Helen’s early contributions was the development of YourWorkpath, a user-focused, interactive online repository of Total Work Health® educational resources, evidence-based toolkits, and other outputs from the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center (OHWC) and the Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences. The goal of YourWorkpath is to deliver research to the public and help close the science-application chasm. YourWorkpath invites organizations to test Institute tools and trainings and provide feedback for continuous improvement. Helen’s drive to get things done and her spirit of collaboration made possible the launch of this important outward facing website that has allowed the research of the Institute to become increasingly accessible to more than 190 organizations.

Helen also co-founded and co-producer the Institute’s  4-year-old podcast, “What’s Work Got to Do With It?”.  She lead the production of 35 episodes with more than 10,000 listens. Listen to Helen’s recent episode featuring our intervention research on sedentary work by Ryan Olson and Brad Wipfli at OHWC.

Helen’s work on the Institute’s blog, Oregon and the Workplace is likely familiar to you. With more than 148 blog posts published by her, we will be forever thankful for her curiosity about the work of the Institute and her ability to craft narrative to invite others to learn about the work of our research teams. Helen has also been a key collaborator in the Institute’s outreach efforts, hosting booths at various occupational health, safety, and wellness events, and presenting at conferences.

The Institute enjoys a steady social media presence thanks to Helen. We consistently post on Facebook, LinkedIn, and  Twitter. Helen’s commitment to a consistent presence on these platforms has made our work visible to increasingly wider audiences and sets the stage for those who assume responsibility for this continued form of outreach.

Helen has also led the Institute’s Dissemination Workgroup, an internal initiative to train the Institute’s research leaders and teams on science communication and research translation best practices. These organizational development practices will have lasting impact and help our Institute and OHWC establish continuity and sustainability as we move into the future.

We thank Helen for all her many contributions to the Institute and wish her the best as she takes her “can do” spirit and passion for travel and the outdoors into her next phase, as she travels the world with her husband, Tim. You can follow her travels on YouTube.