Dr. Niitsu mainly teaches undergraduate and graduate nursing students. Examples of courses that he has taught at the University of Washington Bothell (UW Bothell) include BNURS360: Critical Reading and Information Literacy in Nursing, BNURS460: Translating Scholarly Knowledge to Nursing Practice, and BNURS506: Advanced Pathophysiology, Pharmacology, and Health Assessment. He has also taught fieldwork and capstone courses (e.g. BNURS591: Advanced Fieldwork and Capstone II) and supervised graduate nursing students. He is one of COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) fellows (https://www.uwb.edu/connected-learning/global/coil-initiative/coil-fellows) and has been working with his COIL partner, the Institute of Science Tokyo (IST; formerly known as Tokyo Medical and Dental University), for collaborative classes between UW Bothell and IST nursing students. He has contributed to the Well-Being for Life and Learning Guidebook by the UW Resilience Lab (https://www.washington.edu/uaa/resilience-lab/) and has been implementing the strategies outlined in the guidebook to promote well-being in the classroom.

In our society, potentially traumatic events (PTEs), such as natural disasters, are common. When exposed to PTEs, some individuals are more vulnerable to developing psychopathology, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), whereas others are more resilient. It implies that psychological reactions to PTEs are largely heterogeneous. Dr. Niitsu’s research focuses on and is passionate about holistically investigating resilience and better understanding what contributes to individual differences in psychological resilience. He has investigated resilience from perspectives of behavior genetics and psychoimmunology and has incorporated biomarkers of stress resilience, such as polymorphisms in the serotonin-transporter-linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) and interleukin 6 (IL-6). He has also conducted research studies to test the feasibility and effectiveness of resilience interventions, including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), to reduce psychological distress among college students. He believes in the human potential for resilience and has been reflecting on what he has learned from resilience research in his teaching and clinical practice to maximize their resilience capacity.  Learn more about Dr. Niitsu’s scholarship.