Qinglan "Priscilla" Ding

Areas of Expertise

• Cardiometabolic health: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and sleep disorders
• Secondary analyses of longitudinal cohorts and clinical trials
• Integration of electronic health records and patient reported outcomes
• Causal inference (propensity scores/weighting), mixed effects and survival models, machine learning risk prediction
• Pragmatic screening and decision support tools for diverse populations

HHS Signature Research Area(s)

• Developmental Health and Wellness
• Healthy Lifestyles and Vital Longevity

School of Nursing Research Area(s)

• Care of the Older Adult
• Health Promotion and Population Health

Biography

Qinglan “Priscilla” Ding, PhD, MBBS, AGPCNP‑BC, is a tenured Associate Professor in Purdue’s School of Nursing. Her research improves cardiovascular health—especially where heart disease, diabetes, and sleep disorders intersect—by linking longitudinal cohorts, clinical trials, electronic health records, and patient‑reported data to build practical risk‑stratification and decision‑support tools for clinics and communities. She applies mixed‑effects and survival models, causal‑inference methods (propensity scores/weighting), and machine‑learning prediction, with an emphasis on reproducibility and clear visualization. She completed clinical and research training in sleep medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital and VA Connecticut, which informs current studies. Ongoing projects include low‑cost cardiometabolic screening tailored to diverse populations and a pilot large‑language‑model chatbot to support self‑management and shared decision‑making in primary and specialty care. She mentors trainees across nursing, medicine, engineering, and computer science, and was named a 2025 Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing by the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence. She is a board‑certified Adult‑Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner in U.S. and maintains clinical practice in family health.

Education

• PhD, Nursing & Health Outcomes, Yale University
• Postdoctoral Clinical Research Fellow, Cleveland Clinic (Cardiovascular research)
• MS, Adult Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner (AGPCNP BC), Purdue University
• BS, Michigan State University
• MBBS (Medicine), Southwest Medical University (China)
• Global Clinical Scholar Research Training (GCSRT), Harvard Medical School — Concentration: Advanced Quantitative Methods of Epidemiology
• Data Analytics Fellowship, Data Incubator / Pragmatic Institute (Python, SQL, visualization)

Current Courses

• NUR 503 - Advanced Health Assessment
• NUR 507 - Physiologic Concepts for Advanced Practice Nursing
• NUR 512 - Clinical Application of Pharmacotherapeutics
• NUR 532 - Acute Illness: Adult Health Practice
• NUR 542 - Chronic Illness and Commonly Recurring Conditions: Adult Health Practice

Selected Publications

• Ding Q, Herrin J, Kryger M. Sex-specific associations between habitual snoring and cancer prevalence: insights from a US Cohort Study. SLEEP Advances 2024;5(1) doi: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpae051
• Ding Q, Lu Y, Herrin J, Zhang T, Marrero DG. Uncovering heterogeneous cardiometabolic risk profiles in US adults: the role of social and behavioral determinants of health. BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care. 2023;11(5):e003558. doi:10.1136/bmjdrc-2023-003558.
• Ding, Q, Spatz, E. S., Bena, J. F., Morrison, S. L., Levay, M., Lin, H., Grey, M., Edwards, N. E., Isaacs, D., West, L., Combs, P., & Albert, N. M. (2023). Association of SGLT-2 Inhibitors with treatment satisfaction and diabetes-specific and general health status in adults with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Journal of American Heart Association, 12(17), e029058. https://doi.org/10.1161/jaha.122.029058.
• Ding Q, Qin L, Wojeck B, Inzucchi SE, Ibrahim A, Bravata DM, Strohl KP, Yaggi HK, Zinchuk AV. Polysomnographic phenotypes of obstructive sleep apnea and incident type 2 diabetes: Results from the DREAM study. Annals of the American Thoracic Society. 2021 Jun 29. PMID: 34185617. doi: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.202012-1556OC.
• Ding Q, Spatz ES, Lipska KJ, Lin H, Spertus JA, Dreyer RP, Whittemore R, Funk M, Bueno H, Krumholz HM. Newly diagnosed diabetes and outcomes after acute myocardial infarction in young adults. Heart. 2020 Oct 20: heartjnl-2020-317101. doi: 10.1136/heartjnl-2020- 317101. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33082173.

Selected Grants

• 2024 Showalter Trust Research Award, Ding (PI), Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Research Trust, 07/01/2024-07/31/2025. Machine learning for diabetes and pre-diabetes screening: Leveraging routinely collected health data and social and behavioral determinants of health
• U.S. State Department: Stevens Initiative & Aspen Institute, Ding (Purdue Site PI), 08/2021-04/2022. Research, Education, and Advocacy for Community Health (REACH): Data Analytics in Public Health

In the News

• On Associations between Polysomnographic Phenotypes of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Incident Type 2 Diabetes