View Madison's defense presentation with Q&A 

June 2, 2025 | 2:15pm

On May 16th, the FIRST Center's second doctoral student, now Dr. Madison Raposa, defended her doctoral thesis.

Madison worked with FIRST under the leadership of Dr. Jennifer Taylor and her defense committee to examine data collected from the most recent wave of the Fire service Organizational Culture of Safety (FOCUS) survey. In total, she conducted three separate studies with three specific aims.

• Specific Aim 1: She conducted a descriptive analysis of the FOCUS 3.0 survey wave with a specific emphasis on the newly added leadership and mental health modules.
• Specific Aim 2: She investigated mental health within the FOCUS 3.0 survey sample and differences by individual- and department-level characteristics. She also examined the relationship between safety climate and mental health.
• Specific Aim 3: She conducted qualitative interviews to examine how fire departments are dealing with mental health and burnout among their members.

Madison's passion for fire service research stems from her personal life experience—she is the daughter of a lieutenant from the New Bedford Fire Department in Massachusetts.

She received her Bachelor of Arts in Health Science from Stonehill College in 2020. She earned her Master of Science in Population Health Research with a focus in Epidemiology from Boston University in 2021.

In the summer of 2021, Madison worked full time as a Firefighter Injury Research, Epidemiology, and Evaluation (FIRE) Fellow and contributed to the development of a workplace violence prevention curriculum for fire-based EMS responders in collaboration with the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Madison dedicates her doctoral research to all members of the United States fire and rescue service, for whom this work is intended. She expresses her deep gratitude for those who participated in the FOCUS survey, whose contributions made this research possible.