“Beth had the research training both in medical anthropology and public health to bring a truly unique perspective to our work. She provided important perspective not only in shaping the methods of the projects we worked on together, but also teaching me as well as others with less qualitative expertise, how to bolster the rigor of the methods. However, she was also practical with what could be feasibly done in our budget. I think it’s was also really helpful in having someone who wasn’t a content expert but brought this other perspective because clinical researchers can often bring a framework to our work that risks bias in our interpretation. She has a wonderful way of pointing out our framework in a constructive way that improves the quality of the work.  I frequently refer other primary researchers as well as clinician educators to Beth for methodologic advice. Few, if any others, at our institution have both her theoretical training and practical background."

Carolyn Foster, MD, Health Services and Quality of Care Research Fellow / Instructor, Department of Pediatrics - University of Washington School of Medicine

“As a principal investigator conducting mixed-methods research, Beth Jacob-Files has been an instrumental member of my research team. She has an excellent grasp of advance qualitative methods, and consistently teaches myself and others on our team how to apply more rigorous methodology to our research. As the qualitative expert on several of my research projects, Beth Jacob-Files has provided incredible insight from study conception and data collection to analysis of the data and manuscript preparation.  As I am a novice researcher in the qualitative arena, she has taught me how to think more critically as I formulate my interview guides, sample potential participants and develop coding frameworks.  She is enthusiastic, passionate and extremely dedicated to engaging in qualitative research, and her collaborative nature makes her an effective and dependable team member.”

Arti Desai, MD, MSPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Seattle Children's Research Institute

"I’ve had the pleasure of working with Beth on two quality improvement research studies.  She is a thoughtful and respectful collaborator who can think broadly about the implications of a research project from start to finish.  As a fellow anthropologist, I have appreciated the knowledge she brings from public health to qualitative research approaches.  Furthermore, Beth’s expertise in healthcare, manuscript writing and publishing are indispensable. In addition, she is super reliable & very organized." 

Julia Wignall, MA, Anthropologist

Beth served as the lead qualitative investigator on my project, which evaluated the impact of the use of non-medical personnel in the home and school setting on diabetes self-management in youth. Pediatric diabetes was a new subject area for her;  she picked up the background necessary for analysis very quickly. One of her main roles was to teach other co-investigators how to perform qualitative analysis under a limited timeline and budget. This included technical and theoretical expertise, specifically how to create, organize and synthesize thematic “code” findings within Dedoose software. She assisted with thematic summaries of the data and developed best practices for our team on how to achieve the objectives of the qualitative analysis. I look forward to continuing to work with her as we turn our thematic findings and reports into published manuscripts. I have no doubt that Beth could apply these technical and critical thinking skills in a wide variety of settings and topics.

Faisal Malik, MD, MSHS