Dr. Kimminau is a biomedical anthropologist and health services researcher who has worked throughout her career with organizations trying to meet the health needs of their communities. She has a B.A. from Brandeis University and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from The Ohio State University. She taught at Wichita State University, worked for the public sector for the U.S. Army as a forensic scientist and in the private sector for Harvard Community Health Plan/Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. She served as vice president for research and analysis, first at HealthNet, Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri and then at the Kansas Health Institute in Topeka, KS.
Throughout her career, she has focused on policy and practice in primary care, public health and health disparities. She is a professor in the department of family medicine and community health and is the associate director for Frontiers: University of Kansas Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Dr. Kimminau leads evaluation, co-leads team science and continues to support community, patient and stakeholder engagement across the clinical and translational science continuum. She has joint faculty appointments in Anthropology and Population Health.
Dr. Kimminau serves as the lead patient engagement officer for many clinical and translational research projects including EMPOWER PKD, PainsKC, and the PCORnet funded Greater Plains Collaborative. Along with patient research advocate Cheryl Jernigan and Midwest Cancer Alliance, she established PIVOT, which is a patient and family engagement effort for the University of Kansas Cancer Center. Dr. Kimminau is a founding board member of RareKC and provides linkages to the research community as well as identifies opportunities to highlight collaborative opportunities to advance all rare disease research. She served as the research director for five years and currently is a senior researcher with the American Academy of Family Physicians National Research Network, headquartered in Leawood, KS.
