What if we thought about aging differently?

The UW de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s annual Ignite Aging Symposium invites the public to explore healthy aging through connection, creativity and community.

Everyone is aging. Yet conversations about growing older often focus on what we might lose: mobility, memory, independence, hearing or vision. At the University of Washington School of Nursing’s de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging, the conversation starts somewhere else.

Symposium attendees seated at tables smile and hold up sheets of paper from a group activity. — Attendees participate in an activity at the 2025 Ignite Aging symposium.

“What are the strengths of this process that we’re all experiencing? What can we learn along the way? How can we support others we care about?” asks Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA, director of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging and host of the 9th annual Ignite Aging Symposium, a free, public event hosted at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture on Thursday, October 1, 2026.

Four students sit together during a musical performance; one plays an acoustic guitar, two hold microphones and one sits on a box drum. — Keys to Connection high school students perform at the 2025 Ignite Aging symposium.

The annual event is an invitation to join together in community and explore aging more fully—not simply as a collection of losses to prepare for, but as a lifelong process shaped by health, creativity, culture, relationships, environments and community.

“When we created Ignite Aging nine years ago, we wanted to excite—to ignite—this topic rather than make aging feel dreary,” said Basia.

The idea is captured perhaps most notably in the Center’s own anthem, written several years ago by Marigrace Becker, MSW, director of the Memory Hub. Its refrain begins with a simple reminder: “I’m getting older, and so are you!” From there, the song celebrates research, education, community partnership and the possibility of changing how people think about growing older.

Connection as a pathway to healthy aging

This year, Ignite Aging turns its attention to social connection. A growing body of evidence connects social relationships not only with emotional well-being, but with physical health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that meaningful social connection is associated with longer, healthier lives and reduced risk of serious health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression and anxiety.

Seven attendees smile around a table covered with workshop materials, including papers, markers, cups and water bottles. — Attendees engage in a group activity at the 2025 Ignite Aging symposium.

Paige Bartlett, public information specialist for the de Tornyay Center, describes social connection as a health behavior that belongs alongside other behaviors people may already recognize.

“We talk about things like diet, nutrition and exercise, but social connection is becoming recognized as another foundational pillar of health,” Paige said.

The program has been intentionally designed to help attendees practice connecting in real time. From the location to the facilitators and presenters, each part of the morning invites attendees to connect with themselves and others through movement, storytelling, sounds and art.

Presenters include Ellen Wanless, who will explore how stories can bring people together through “Spinning Tales; Weaving Connection”; Miriana Duran and Ziqing “Kaylin” Ji, who will explore cultural considerations in supporting Latino families; Julia Becke, MD, a physician, medical educator and dancer, who will explore creative connection through movement and brain health through her “Dancing Together” project for people living with dementia and their caregivers; and Leo Freedman, who will introduce us to soundscapes and their value in connecting with others.

Each presentation includes an interactive element, inviting participants to move beyond simply hearing about connection and experience it for themselves, and attendees will be invited to continue conversing while exploring the grounds after the program.

A de Tornyay way of thinking about aging

Established in 1998 through an endowment from Drs. Rheba and Rudy de Tornyay, the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging brings together research, education and community partnerships focused on healthy aging. That work exists alongside the University of Washington’s academic offerings, including the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care and Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner DNP tracks, which prepare advanced practice nurses to care for adults and older adults across primary, acute and complex care settings.

“On a practical level, we fund students and faculty, and work with our community partners, but it’s about serving as a catalyst,” Basia said. “We co-design initiatives, and look for opportunities to highlight and disseminate the transformative work happening in aging.”

Together, the preparation happening in academic programs and the research, scholarship and community engagement supported through de Tornyay reflect a comprehensive approach to the health and well-being of aging populations.

Smiling person with shoulder-length dark hair and black-rimmed glasses, wearing a dark blazer and gray turtleneck, standing in a library aisle between shelves of books. — Sarah McKiddy, PhD, RN

Sarah McKiddy, PhD, RN, a former de Tornyay predoctoral scholar and 2026 graduate of the UW PhD in Nursing Science program, explored ageism and the ways expectations about growing older can influence how people see themselves and what they believe they can—or should—do. Her work challenged assumptions about aging while encouraging more age-inclusive language, representation and engagement. Read more about Sarah’s journey in nursing science in this Scholar Spotlight.

Sarah’s later dissertation work extended that inquiry through a co-designed partnership exploring music and healthy aging for people living with memory loss—work that brought together the Memory Hub, Seattle Chamber Music Society and community participants.

A person in a purple T-shirt sits outdoors on a bench, holding a gray microphone with a foam windscreen while looking to the side; trees and a sunny sky fill the background. — UW music student Leo Freedman (Photo: Juan Rodriguez).

Leo Freedman, a 2026 UW graduate who contributed to that research on music and healthy aging for people with memory loss, is one of this year’s Ignite Aging presenters. His session, “Shared Spaces: Connecting by Listening,” will invite participants to experience connection through sound and listening. Learn more about his path to exploring music’s potential to improve the quality of life for people with memory issues, such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.

Come be part of the conversation

The de Tornyay Center and Ignite Aging are ultimately about more than any single symposium. Across the School of Nursing, students are preparing to care for adults across the lifespan; scholars are examining dementia, ageism and healthy aging; researchers are generating new evidence; and community partners are helping ensure ideas are designed with, not simply delivered to, the people they are intended to serve.

The invitation extends beyond the symposium: Listen differently. Tell a story. Meet someone new. Consider how culture shapes our experiences. And carry and act on the conversation about aging into your own family and community.

Because aging isn’t something that happens to somebody else.

It is something all of us are doing.

The 9th annual Ignite Aging Symposium: Social Connections will take place Thursday, Oct. 1, from 9 a.m. to noon at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Refreshments will be provided. The morning will include interactive activities designed to bring attendees into the experience.

Coffee and Community with Dean Thompson: Making space for community in the year ahead

Making space for community in the year ahead

Coffee and Community with Dean Thompson will offer faculty, staff and students opportunities to connect throughout the 2026–27 academic year.

Our community is at its best when faculty, staff and students have opportunities to come together, build relationships and learn from one another. Beginning this fall, the UW School of Nursing is creating intentional space for community by hosting Coffee and Community with Dean Thompson, an informal conversation on select mornings throughout the 2026–27 academic year.

The gatherings will take place from 7:30 – 8:20 a.m. in T-332, before classes, meetings, clinicals and other responsibilities pull members of our community in different directions. The goal is not to add another formal meeting to the calendar, but to create room for conversation, perspective-sharing and relationship-building.

Whether you come with an idea you want to share, a question you have been considering or simply a desire to spend time in community, we hope you will join us.

Coffee and Community dates

Coffee and Community gatherings will take place throughout the academic year. Participants are welcome to attend one gathering or several throughout the year.

Wednesday, 9/30
Thursday, 10/1
Thursday, 11/12
Wednesday, 11/18
Wednesday, 12/16
Thursday, 12/17

A Legacy of Connection: Dr. Kathryn Barnard’s work of Dissemination in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health marks its 50th Anniversary

Five decades after the founding of Parent-Child Relationship Programs at the Barnard Center (formerly NCAST, Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training), the Barnard Center continues to advance a simple but transformative idea: relationships are fundamental to how children grow, develop and thrive.

Some of the earliest building blocks of health and emotional development can be found in the back-and-forth between a young child and their caregiver. Kathryn E. Barnard, PhD, RN, FAAN, a University of Washington nursing professor and pioneer in infant mental health, spent her career helping health professionals see those interactions and understand why they matter. Dr. Barnard once described the idea at the center of this work simply: “There’s a process of synchrony that’s extremely important—the ability of parent and baby to share emotions, [and] respond to one another’s cues.”

In 1976, Dr. Barnard founded what is now Parent-Child Relationship Programs (PCRP) at the Barnard Center at the University of Washington School of Nursing. Her research directly demonstrated the importance of parent-child interaction for children’s development and led to the development of tools that enabled the observation of cues exchanged between caregivers and young children. Just a few years later, more than 600 nurses learned to use the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training in the Feeding and Teaching scales through a series of satellite classes — an early effort to disseminate research innovations beyond the university and put it into the hands of professionals working with families.

That insight would help shape decades of research, education and practice in infant and early childhood mental health. A short UW School of Nursing video produced during Barnard’s lifetime offers a chance to hear more about the person behind the work and the legacy she helped build. Watch Dr. Kathryn Barnard reflect on her work.

Twenty-five years after PCRP was established, another chapter of that legacy began.

With the support of generous donors, the Center on Infant Mental Health and Development opened in 2001 as a multidisciplinary resource for research and training, with an initial focus on expanding the number of professionals equipped to provide therapeutic support for parents and infants in Washington state. In 2012, the Center was renamed the Barnard Center for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health in honor of Dr. Barnard and her vision that shaped its work.

Today, Dr. Monica Oxford, MSW, PhD, Vice Chair for Research and the Kathryn Barnard Endowed Professor for Infant Mental Health in Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing and executive director of the Barnard Center, leads the Center as it carries that legacy forward — advancing research, preparing the infant and early childhood mental health workforce and translating evidence into programs and tools that support children, caregivers and communities.

“Kathy was a force of nature. Fifty years ago, she had this amazing idea to take what we knew from our research on parents and children, translate it into practice strategies and disseminate those strategies by training community-based providers through satellite. She was truly one of the first, if not the first, ‘translational scientists.'”

Dr. Monica Oxford, MSW, PhDVice Chair for Research and Kathryn Barnard Endowed Professor for Infant Mental Health in Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing; Executive Director, Barnard Center

As the Barnard Center celebrates 25 years and Parent-Child Relationship Programs marks 50 years of dissemination, the commitment to understanding relationships and translating research into practice remains at the heart of the work.

Building on Dr. Barnard’s Legacy

Barnard understood that supporting healthy development meant paying attention not only to a child, but to the relationships and environments surrounding them.

The Center’s newly released 2025–26 Annual Report offers a picture of just how far that work now reaches — and how Barnard’s legacy continues to evolve through research, workforce development, education and dissemination through the Parent-Child Relationship Programs at the Barnard Center.

“One of Kathy’s superpowers was that she was a connector. She had relationships with providers and scholars across the globe. It seemed like everyone knew and loved Kathy. To this day, I still meet people who were inspired by her work or connected to her in some way.” — Dr. Monica Oxford

During the 2025–26 academic year, the Center facilitated 101 training events reaching 4,236 professionals, with participants in the United States and internationally in Australia, Canada, South Korea, Mexico, Pakistan and Spain. Its free lecture series alone reached 1,713 professionals, providing education on topics ranging from Black grief and caregiver support after a NICU stay to the origins of empathy. In 2026, the Parent-Child Interaction Feeding and Teaching Scales also launched a self-study option to make training more accessible to professionals.

The report captures that impact alongside the people, partnerships and research carrying it forward — from professional training and international dissemination to new curricula and studies examining the role relationships can play across childhood.

Explore the Barnard Center’s 2025–26 Annual Report

2025–26 Annual Report

Celebrating 50 years by looking forward

This year, the UW School of Nursing’s 2027 Academic Year Theme is “Care to Meet the Moment.” Barnard’s legacy reminds us that care includes paying attention, understanding what people and communities need and continuing to build the knowledge, relationships and tools to respond to those needs.

Fifty years after Parent-Child Relationship Programs (formerly NCAST) began, the research questions have expanded and the community carrying the work forward has grown, but the core of the work remains steadfast: when we understand relationships more deeply, we have more ways to support children, equip caregivers and help communities thrive.

Visit the Barnard Center website to learn more about the research, programs, people and partnerships carrying this legacy forward.

Learning beyond the classroom: UW students head to Brazil

Thirteen UW students will begin an immersive health and cultural learning experience in Brazil this week, as two additional study abroad opportunities open for spring 2027.

Lessons about health can be more deeply understood by experiencing the communities, cultures and systems that shape it.

On Sept. 5, 13 University of Washington students will travel to Brazil for three weeks of immersive academic and cultural learning in Londrina and São Paulo. Through Nursing Brazil: Health Promotion and Community Engagement, students will explore health promotion, physical activity, community health and Brazil’s public health system while learning alongside faculty, researchers and students at two Brazilian universities.

The program is led by UW School of Nursing Research Assistant Professor Vitor Oliveira, PhD, with co-directors Suha Ballout, PhD, RN, FADLN, FAAN, Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, and Jan Flowers, MS, faculty director of the Digital Initiatives Group.

At the State University of Londrina (UEL), students will engage with faculty and research across health sciences, physical education and sports science. Their learning will include exposure to community and clinical research programs, including strength training for older women and exercise interventions for breast cancer survivors. The experience will then continue at the University of São Paulo (USP) School of Nursing, where students will learn alongside faculty working in areas including public health, primary care, chronic disease, health promotion and clinical care.

Together, these experiences invite students to consider health beyond individual clinical encounters — exploring how culture, policy, research, community and the built environment influence health and well-being.

For Oliveira, who was born in Brazil and spent a decade living in Londrina, the program is also an opportunity to introduce students to people and institutions that helped shape his work as an educator and health researcher.

“Brazil offers an extraordinary setting for students to understand health beyond the classroom,” Oliveira said. He hopes students return with a broader understanding of global health, stronger intercultural skills and a deeper appreciation for how communities and health systems respond to their own contexts.

That spirit of curiosity is central to the program. Flowers encourages students to “practice the discipline of understanding first” — approaching a different health system by first asking how it works and why it developed as it did, rather than immediately measuring it against what they already know.

As this year’s cohort prepares for Brazil, the School of Nursing is also inviting students across the University of Washington to consider two new opportunities to study there in spring 2027.

Study in Brazil in spring 2027

Spring Break: Digital Health, Data Systems, and Health Equity

March 20–27, 2027 | Rio de Janeiro

This spring break program offers an immersive introduction to health informatics and public health data systems. Students will explore how health information, digital technologies and data-driven decision-making can be used to improve population health, respond to public health threats and advance health equity.

Hosted in collaboration with the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the program will connect students with faculty, researchers and practitioners working at the intersection of health and technology.

Students must enroll in NMETH 210: Science, Evidence and Health: Mastering Health Information and Personal Health Technologies during the winter quarter. No Portuguese language experience is required, and activities in Brazil will be conducted in English.

Application deadline: Nov. 1, 2026

Information sessions: Oct. 14, noon–1 p.m. and Oct. 26, 5–6 p.m.

Learn more and apply for the spring break program

Spring Quarter: Global Health, Physical Activity, and Community Engagement

March 28–June 6, 2027 | Londrina and São Paulo

This 10-week program blends global health education, physical activity and aging research with cultural engagement. Students will explore how health, movement, equity and Brazil’s public health system intersect in community and clinical settings while studying in Londrina and São Paulo.

The 18-credit curriculum combines nursing and Portuguese language coursework through NURS 413, PORT 110 and PORT 299. No prerequisites or prior Portuguese language experience are required.

Application deadline: Nov. 15, 2026

Information sessions: Oct. 30, noon–1 p.m. and Nov. 9, 5–6 p.m.

Learn more and apply for the spring quarter program

We wish this year’s cohort and our partners at UEL and USP a meaningful journey of learning, discovery and connection. Faculty, staff, advisers, alumni and community partners are encouraged to share the 2027 opportunities with students interested in global health, health equity, digital health, physical activity, community engagement and cross-cultural learning.

2026 Doctor of Nursing Practice Clinical Preceptors of the Year

Behind every successful DNP student stands a dedicated clinical preceptor, an unsung hero in nursing education.

Clinical preceptors bring deep expertise, compassion and mentorship to our Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students, who spend up to three days per week over four quarters in clinical placements, learning directly from these seasoned professionals.

These mentors don’t just excel in clinical practice and community service; they guide, inspire and shape the future of advanced practice nursing and leadership in systems and population health.

Meet our Preceptors of the Year

This fall, we’re proud to celebrate our Clinical Preceptors of the Year, exceptional leaders whose impact reaches far beyond the clinic. Their dedication strengthens our program and elevates the future of healthcare.

Celebrate our preceptors at this year’s Nurses of Influence Awards Ceremony on Oct. 29, 2026, 5 – 7 p.m., in Oak Hall, Denny Room, at the University of Washington, Seattle campus.

UW Nursing Students Recognized at KCNA Annual Gala

Wing Yin Cheung, David Drew and Mariama Darboe receiving scholarship certificates at the King County Nurses Association Annual Gala. — From left to right: Wing Yin Cheung, David Drew, Mariama Darboe

Five University of Washington School of Nursing students were recognized as scholarship recipients by the King County Nurses Association (KCNA) during its 123rd Annual Gala on May 14, 2026, at Cedarbrook Lodge in SeaTac.

The annual event, held during National Nurses Month, brought together nurses, nursing students and healthcare leaders from across the region for an evening of celebration, networking and support for the nursing profession. The gala also honored scholarship recipients and Shining Star Nurse awardees while raising funds to support future nursing student scholarships.

UW students recognized by KCNA this year included Wing Yin Cheung, David Drew, Mariama Darboe, Van Tran and Madhav Khanal. Three of the students — Cheung, Drew and Darboe — attended the gala and were recognized during the evening’s program.

The recognition reflects the students’ dedication to nursing education, leadership and service. KCNA scholarships help support the next generation of nurses as they prepare to address the evolving healthcare needs of communities throughout King County and beyond.

The University of Washington School of Nursing congratulates Wing Yin Cheung, David Drew, Mariama Darboe, Van Tran and Madhav Khanal on this well-deserved honor and thanks the King County Nurses Association for its continued investment in nursing students and the future of the profession.

Two School of Nursing Faculty Selected for Prestigious ELNEC Faculty Development Workshop

Mihkai Wickline and Kristen Childress — Mihkai Wickline (left) and Kristen Childress (right)

Two faculty members from the University of Washington School of Nursing have been selected to participate in the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) Faculty Development and Leadership in Palliative Care Workshop taking place July 16–17, 2026, in Portland, Oregon.

Mihkai Wickline, PhD, RN, AOCN, TCTCN, Assistant Teaching Professor in Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics, and Kristen Childress, DNP, Teaching Professor in Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, join other faculty from across the country at this competitive workshop offered through the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Wickline brings decades of clinical experience in oncology and hematopoietic cell transplant nursing, having previously completed the ELNEC course as a practicing nurse. Now transitioning to her teaching role, she looks forward to building a network with fellow faculty while expanding her pedagogical toolkit for integrating end-of-life care content into the medical-surgical didactic course she teaches. Childress, who serves as co-director for the UW Palliative Care Training Center, developed three goals for the workshop: describing components of palliative care content for graduate nursing curriculum, developing a plan to integrate palliative care into the family nurse practitioner program and identifying competency-based learning activities aligned with the school’s curriculum redesign efforts around the new AACN Essentials.

Both faculty members emphasize the profound impact of palliative care education on students and practicing nurses alike. Wickline is eager to develop new cases, activities and assessments that will help students gain competency in end-of-life communication and care, while Childress highlights how equipping nurses with palliative care skills helps them provide values-aligned care and combat professional burnout. The workshop participation also strengthens a tri-campus initiative, with faculty from UW Seattle, UW Bothell and UW Tacoma collaborating to integrate evidence-based palliative care content across all nursing programs.

DNP Student Spotlight: David Drew

David Drew is completing their second year as a DNP student in the Population Health and Systems Leadership track and is exploring equitable and just use of AI in healthcare. In May 2026, they served as a student ambassador at the RAIN Summit. Selected as the graduate student speaker at the King County Nurses Association scholarship gala earlier this year, they stated, “Like so many before, after, and beside me, I walk a path dedicated to justice, representation, and equity, with vulnerability, joy, and strength.”

From the Gala to the Summit: A Student Leading with Purpose

The King County Nurses Association scholarship recognizes students who don’t just study health equity — they live it. Recipients are selected for their creative approaches to reducing health disparities in the community and for embodying the values of collaboration, compassion, innovation and community wellness. Drew’s selection as graduate student speaker reflects how fully they have embraced that mission, bringing both personal conviction and professional vision to a room full of nurses and community members committed to the same work.

David Drew receiving their scholarship certificate at the King County Nurses Association scholarship gala.

That same commitment carried Drew to the University of Washington’s Northwest Summit to Reimagine AI in Nursing and Health Care — known as the RAIN Summit — where they served as one of a small number of student ambassadors selected from a competitive applicant pool. The role offered more than volunteerism: ambassadors gained access to keynote and panel sessions exploring the frontiers of AI in healthcare and participated in flash mentorship moments with nationally recognized leaders in the field. For a student whose scholarly focus is the equitable and just use of AI in healthcare, the summit was less a detour from their research and more a window into its real-world stakes.

What ties these two experiences together is Drew’s understanding that innovation without equity is incomplete. Whether speaking to a room about justice and representation or learning alongside healthcare leaders about the promises and perils of AI, Drew brings the same grounded presence — one shaped by vulnerability, joy and strength, as they put it themselves.

Celebration Season: Honoring the Class of 2026

At the University of Washington School of Nursing, the end of the spring quarter is never just one moment.g

There are the events that everyone sees: Nurses Week celebrations, school-wide announcements and ceremonies from Kane Hall to Alaska Airlines Arena. Then there are the quieter moments that exist between students and faculty: the last clinical shift, the last exam, the last time walking into the Health Sciences Building as a student rather than a professional.

Nursing school is hard. It comes with a daily juggle of scheduling meals or snacks between lectures, clinical rotations and simulation lab time, studying for exams that demand not just knowledge but judgment under pressure and long days that turn into longer nights, often filled with questions and doubt. Students apply to our programs knowing the rigor on an intellectual level, but as the quarters continue to move forward, the impact of that knowing becomes more real.

Then, as summer begins to peek through the grayness unique to Seattle’s winter skies, students approaching the end of their program help usher in the sun. As posts about the upcoming graduation begin to fill our social media tags, they bring with them the promise of summer break, preparation for NCLEX testing and national boards and every earned moment of what comes when you shine with the brightness of accomplishment.

This year, the School of Nursing is calling the final weeks of May and the first weeks of June exactly what they are: a season of celebration — and we welcome you to join us.

Celebration traditions that span the centuries: The Nursing Pinning Ceremony

The nursing pin carries roots that trace back to the 12th century, when monks who cared for sick and injured Crusaders were recognized with a Maltese cross — a symbol of service, devotion and belonging to a community of care. By 1916, that tradition had grown into the pinning ceremony practiced in nursing schools across the country.

Each year, the UW School of Nursing holds pinning ceremonies for graduates in August, March and June. This unique experience does not serve as a marker of the moment a student becomes a nurse — graduation and licensure do that; pinning marks something more personal: the choice each scholar made to walk this path, the commitment they’ve shown year after year and the gratitude they feel toward those who stood alongside them. It is the only ceremony in a nurse’s education designed entirely around recognition, not of an institution, but of a journey and the community that made it possible.

Hilaire J. Thompson, Robert G. and Jean A. Reid Executive Dean of the UW School of Nursing, reflected on her ABSN pinning — and on what makes the UW tradition distinct.

“My own pinning was in 1992 at the Catholic University of America. It was a formal ceremony for the BSN and ABSN students, held in the performing arts theatre on campus. The associate dean for students pinned each of us, while our faculty, family and friends gathered to celebrate…

What I love about the UW tradition is that our students choose their own pinner — and sometimes more than one. They get to honor the people who carried them through: a parent, a partner, a mentor, a faculty member, a friend. That single choice turns the ceremony from a formality into something deeply personal. It says, in front of everyone, here is who walked with me. That, to me, is what pinning is for.”

Hilaire J. ThompsonRobert G. and Jean A. Reid Executive Dean, UW School of Nursing

UW School of Nursing pins in purple and gold arranged together.

Three attendees smile and pose together during a School of Nursing pinning celebration.

A student receives a pin during a School of Nursing ceremony.

A celebration omnes una: The UW School of Nursing Convocation

The Latin word convocare means to call together, and at the UW School of Nursing, we look forward to calling forward our community to celebrate a job well done. From families and friends who gave understanding and support to the trusted faculty who taught and challenged our scholars each day and advisers, coordinators and staff whose steady, often invisible work helped them stay on track — this is the moment all of us come together to say to our graduates: you are ready, and we are with you.

“As we walk into Hec Edmundson Pavilion this year as a SoN community, each of us brings a sense of joy and accomplishment. As a school, we choose to take time to reflect on and thank those who helped make this moment possible, and I want to encourage our graduates to do the same. It is my hope that they take with them not only the knowledge and skills gained from their programs, but the commitment we hold near to us as the University of Washington School of Nursing, to care for and advocate for a healthcare system that serves all.”

Hilaire J. ThompsonRobert G. and Jean A. Reid Executive Dean, UW School of Nursing

UW School of Nursing graduates smile and celebrate together during the Convocation ceremony.

A DNP graduate is hooded by their faculty member during the Convocation ceremony Recognition of Graduates.

UW School of Nursing graduates stand together on the ceremony floor as audience members form heart shapes with their hands.

Family and friends celebrate together in the audience during UW School of Nursing pinning ceremony.

A UW School of Nursing graduate and an older guest applaud during the pinning ceremony.

A graduation cap decorated with purple flowers and the words “Next stop RN.”

Fifty-five years of preparing what’s next

This year’s celebration carries an extra layer of meaning.

In 1971, the University of Washington launched PRIMEX — one of the first family nurse practitioner programs in the country. Its premise, though now considered foundational, was deemed radical at the time, based on the belief that nurses, given the right preparation and authority, could serve as primary care providers for patients who remained unserved and without basic healthcare access.

Fifty-five years later, that premise has held. Patients in rural and historically marginalized communities still rely on nurse practitioners for accessible, responsive care. What began as a single program has grown into the graduate and advanced practice education system that defines the UW School of Nursing today, including the first DNP program on the West Coast and now the #1-ranked public DNP program in the country.

A class Washington has been waiting for

Thousands of graduates have gone on to lead health improvements at the local, national and global levels since the first nursing course was introduced at the University of Washington in 1916, and now graduates are joining a healthcare workforce that desperately needs them.

Without intervention, Washington is projected to have the nation’s largest nursing shortage by 2037. This year, as we have done so many years before, the University of Washington School of Nursing will send nurses, nurse practitioners, nurse-midwives, nurse leaders, clinical informaticists, nursing scientists, researchers and innovators into hospitals, clinics, community health centers and research institutions across the world, ready to practice compassionate, cutting-edge care as trained professionals capable of leading change in the healthcare ecosystem.

This is, and always has been, the legacy of the University of Washington School of Nursing.

2026 SoN Convocation & Awards Ceremony

The 2026 SoN Convocation & Awards Ceremony was held Friday, June 5, 2026, from 6 – 8 p.m. at Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

To learn more about UW School of Nursing programs, research and community, visit the UW School of Nursing website.

From Seoul to Seattle: A Nurse’s Journey Across Borders, Bedside and Beyond

In high school, Jinseon Hwang imagined a future shaped by books and language: a degree in Korean literature, perhaps a life built around words. But when her college entrance exam scores fell short of her hopes, her mother offered a gentle redirect: consider nursing, a field grounded in science, built for stability and devoted to people.

It was not the path Hwang had pictured. It became, in time, the one she could not imagine leaving. Now a second-year PhD student in nursing science at the University of Washington, Hwang has spent more than a decade moving across units, institutions and countries, driven by the belief that every new setting could teach her something the last one could not.

Learning to Study for Patients, Not for Herself

Hwang’s clinical career began in the surgical intensive care unit at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, one of Korea’s largest tertiary medical centers. It was a demanding environment, with complex cases, high acuity and an unrelenting pace, and Hwang met it the way she meets most challenges: by studying constantly.

She was a new nurse, diligent and thorough, accumulating knowledge at a rapid clip. On her days off, she studied. Everyone in the unit knew it. But it took a mistake, and a meeting with her head nurse, to reshape how she thought about what that knowledge was for.

During a night shift, a loosely connected drug line caused a dangerous medication leak. Hwang was taken aback by her patient’s response. Instead of anger, the patient thanked her for caring for her through the night. The harder conversation came later, behind closed doors.

Her head nurse told her plainly: the purpose of her studying did not appear to be for her patients. It seemed aimed at building her own knowledge, her own competence. Nurses, she said, should study for the benefit of the people in their care.

The words landed hard, because they were true. As a new graduate, Hwang had been studying largely to avoid criticism from senior nurses, not out of a genuine focus on patient care. “Looking back, I think many new nurses, and even experienced nurses, can fall into the same mindset,” she said.

That correction changed everything. “The ultimate priority should always be learning for the sake of better patient care,” Hwang said. She came to understand that her head nurse was not reproaching her effort, but redirecting it, pointing a hard-working new nurse toward the true purpose of the profession.

Jinseon Hwang with colleagues in the intensive care unit at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital — Hwang with colleagues in the intensive care unit at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, where she began her nursing career.

A Cardiovascular Focus, Earned Over Years

Over the next several years, Hwang moved through a range of clinical settings, including the surgical intensive care unit (SICU), the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) and the cardiology and rheumatology ward, each one adding another layer to what would become a specialty in cardiovascular nursing. After stepping away from bedside work to pursue her master’s degree at Ewha Womans University, she joined a heart clinic focused on arrhythmia, deepening her expertise by analyzing long-term heart rhythm recordings known as Holter monitors.

Her trajectory pointed next toward Saudi Arabia. She had accepted a position in a cardiac care unit there and had begun the licensing process, a path she completed fully, earning a Saudi nursing license on top of her Korean one. But significant visa delays upended the plan.

Rather than wait indefinitely, Hwang withdrew her acceptance and turned her attention to doctoral programs in the United States. She searched faculty research interests across roughly 40 top-ranked nursing programs, looking for someone whose work aligned with her own focus on cardiac arrest survivors and their family caregivers. She found one: Cynthia Dougherty, a professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing and leader of the Cardiovascular Nursing Research Team. Hwang did not hesitate to enroll at UW.

Jinseon Hwang with Cynthia Dougherty — Hwang with Professor Cynthia Dougherty, whose research on cardiac arrest survivors brought her from Seoul to Seattle.

The decision has proven to be about more than research fit. Dougherty, Hwang said, offers exceptional mentorship, not only guiding her scholarship but providing emotional support through the broader challenges of doctoral study. The school itself has been equally generous. With support from the de Tornyay Center, faculty and School of Nursing scholarships, Hwang has presented her research four times at conferences, with two more presentations scheduled later this year.

“I truly love our community,” she said. “Whenever I need help, our school, faculty and senior students never hesitate to help. I try to do the same for others. That teamwork spirit is also one of the essential values in nursing.”

Jinseon HwangPhD student in Nursing Science

She now holds nursing licenses in three countries (Korea, Saudi Arabia and the United States) and is building a research program at UW focused on the well-being of cardiac arrest survivors and their family caregivers in the post-discharge period: the fragile, often underexamined stretch of time after a patient leaves the hospital but before they have fully found their footing.

Two Days That Spanned Two Systems

Even without U.S. clinical practice, as her student visa does not permit it, Hwang found a way to compare the systems firsthand. Through a connection with a fellow student in her doctoral cohort, she arranged a two-day shadow experience in the cardiovascular ICU at UW Medical Center.

What she observed reinforced what her years of practice had already suggested: that the fundamentals of nursing are constant, but the structures around them vary enormously.

Korean ICUs, she noted, are typically multi-bed rooms with sharply limited visiting hours, just two brief periods per day. At UW Medical Center, single-patient rooms are the norm and families are encouraged to remain at the bedside, a model that reflects a stronger emphasis on family-centered care. Korean patients receive standardized hospital meals; U.S. patients select from a menu. And in the U.S., dedicated ECMO and ventilator specialists share the technical burden that Korean bedside nurses carry alone.

Jinseon Hwang at the cardiac care unit where she developed her specialty in cardiovascular nursing — Hwang at the cardiac care unit where she developed her specialty in cardiovascular nursing.

Communication patterns differed, too. U.S. nurses, she observed, narrate their care step by step and frame requests in ways that feel more collaborative, such as “Can you do it for me?” rather than directives. It was, she said, a noticeably more patient-centered register.

“These differences were fascinating,” Hwang said. She hopes to practice in the United States after completing her PhD.

Borders Are Not Only Lines on a Map

When Hwang thinks about what she would tell nursing students considering careers beyond their own borders, she starts by redefining the word itself.

“Borders are not limited to countries,” she said. “They can be departments, hospitals, regions or nations.”

Her own experience bears that out. When she worked exclusively in the SICU, she believed ICU nursing was the whole of what nursing could be. Moving to the PACU changed that. Moving to the cardiology ward changed it again. Working in a heart clinic, she encountered something she had rarely seen in acute care: what happens to patients after discharge, how they and their families navigate recovery, what continuity of care actually looks like from the patient’s side of the door.

That insight animates her research today.

“The essence of nursing does not change,” she said. “With a genuine heart for patients and openness to diversity, nurses can thrive anywhere.”

Jinseon HwangPhD student in Nursing Science

Hwang is clear-eyed about why she left the bedside to pursue a PhD, and equally clear about what has not changed. She still thinks about her former patients. The research she is building at UW is, in her view, a continuation of the same work, just by different means.

“The ultimate purpose of my research is to serve patients,” she said. “We study not for ourselves, but for the people whose lives depend on our knowledge and care.”

Jinseon Hwang is a PhD student in the UW School of Nursing. Her research focuses on well-being among cardiac arrest survivors and their family caregivers following hospital discharge.

School of Nursing’s Suah Park Named 2026–27 Magnuson Scholar

Suah Park, a family nurse practitioner and doctoral student at the University of Washington School of Nursing, has been named a 2026–2027 Magnuson Scholar, one of the most prestigious research honors awarded across UW’s six Health Sciences schools.

Park is among seven scholars selected this year from the Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Social Work. For the fourth consecutive year, the endowment’s annual income supported an additional seventh recipient. Each scholar receives $34,000 to advance their education and research.

Bridging the Clinic and the Lab

Park’s research sits at a compelling and underexplored intersection: sleep health, diabetes management and the lived experience of Korean immigrants. As a practicing clinician at a primary care clinic in Tacoma, Park sees firsthand what the data often misses: the way that disrupted sleep, emotional distress and fatigue layer on top of the daily challenges of managing type 2 diabetes, compounding an already complex chronic condition.

“Many of my patients struggle not only with glycemic control, but also with fatigue, emotional distress and disrupted sleep,” Park has noted of her clinical observations. Her research program directly addresses this reality by positioning sleep as a culturally relevant and modifiable pathway to improve diabetes outcomes.

Research That Centers the Margins

Korean immigrants with type 2 diabetes face a particularly high burden of sleep disturbance, compounded by linguistic, cultural and structural barriers to care. Park’s work is among a small body of research that centers on this population, not as a footnote to broader diabetes studies, but as its primary focus.

Long-term, Park aims to lead interdisciplinary research teams and develop clinical trials of culturally tailored sleep interventions for Korean immigrants with type 2 diabetes. Her vision is to build a sustained research program that reduces health disparities among immigrant and underrepresented populations by informing clinical practice and improving chronic disease management.

Her study examines how socio-contextual factors, including health literacy and the process of acculturation, alongside physical and psychological symptoms such as pain, stress, depression, anxiety and loneliness, relate to sleep disturbance. A key exploratory aim will examine the relationship between sleep disturbance and glycemic regulation, as measured by hemoglobin A1c.

“Suah is one of the most enthusiastic, productive, determined and motivated students I have interacted with throughout my academic career. Her ability to formulate arguments both verbally and in writing reflects her outstanding intellectual capacity. She has a strong clinical foundation in the care of Korean immigrants with type 2 diabetes.”

Eeeseung ByunAssociate Professor, UW School of Nursing

As an independent nurse scientist, Park seeks to build research that doesn’t just add to the literature — it changes what practitioners do and how patients experience care.

About the Magnuson Scholar Program

The Magnuson Scholar Program is funded by a $2 million endowment established in 1991 through the Warren G. Magnuson Institute for Biomedical Research and Health Professions Training. Senator Warren G. Magnuson represented Washington state in the U.S. Senate from 1944 to 1981, and his career was instrumental in establishing the National Institutes of Health, Medicare and Medicaid.

Each year, the program recognizes one scholar from each of UW’s Health Sciences schools for outstanding academic performance and potential contributions to research. Per the endowment’s terms, at least one scholar must be engaged in research related to diabetes, its antecedents or its treatment.

The 2026–2027 Magnuson Scholars represent all six Health Sciences schools: Azeez Fashina (Dentistry), Nayoon Gim and Annika Syvrud (Medicine), Suah Park (Nursing), Ryan Nguyen (Pharmacy), Yuwei Wang (Public Health) and Joanna (Jo) La Torre (Social Work).

View the 2026–2027 Magnuson Scholar profiles.

Learn more about the Magnuson Scholar Program.

Media contact: Lisa Plancich | planlis@uw.edu

Celebrating Our Faculty This National Nurses Week

National Nurses Week, May 6–12, 2026

Nurses Week is a time to recognize the dedication, innovation and compassion that nurses bring to their work every day. At the UW School of Nursing, that spirit extends far beyond the bedside. Our faculty are researchers, clinicians, educators and leaders who are shaping the future of healthcare — advancing science, driving policy and improving lives across communities locally, nationally and around the world.

This Nurses Week, we are proud to shine a light on just a few of the extraordinary faculty members who represent the best of what nursing has to offer — below is a selection of our incredible UW School of Nursing faculty and the accomplishments and recognitions they have recently received. Their achievements remind us that nursing is not a single path, but a profession of boundless possibility.

Suha Ballout, PhD

Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

Dr. Ballout has been appointed to the American Academy of Nursing’s Policy Standing Committee on Global and Public Health, effective June 1, 2026. A fellow of both the American Academy of Nursing and the Academy of Diversity Leaders in Nursing, she was selected by the Academy’s Board of Directors to advance strategic, collaborative and proactive policy work in support of healthy lives for all people.

Betty Bekemeier, PhD

Professor and Director, Northwest Center for Public Health Practice, Child, Family and Population Health Nursing

Dr. Bekemeier is the recipient of the Welch/Woerne Path Paver Award from the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINR), presented at the organization’s annual gala in Washington, D.C. The award recognizes a nurse researcher who has made significant scientific contributions in a field that advances our understanding of human health and healthcare. This honor reflects Dr. Bekemeier’s decades of transformative impact on public health nursing research and leadership.

Autumn Dennistoun

Clinical Instructor, Child, Family and Population Health Nursing | DNP Alumna

Dennistoun developed hands-on naloxone training tailored to commercial fishers and is now expanding the program across Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Oregon to reduce overdose fatalities in one of the region’s most dispersed and underserved workforces.

Maya Elias, PhD

Assistant Professor, Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics

Dr. Elias has been selected as a 2026 IMPACT Faculty Scholar through the National Institute on Aging’s IMPACT Collaboratory. The one-year program supports investigators developing expertise in embedded pragmatic clinical trials focused on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, providing mentorship, scholarly projects and career development opportunities.

Jan Flowers

Clinical Instructor, Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics | Senior Research Scientist & Faculty Director, Digital Initiatives Group

Flowers was a 2026 nominee for the University of Washington’s Excellence in Global Engagement Award — the University’s highest recognition for faculty and staff making significant contributions to global engagement. Over nearly 20 years, she has advanced equitable global health by co-leading OpenMRS, a global open-source electronic medical record system deployed in more than 80 countries supporting care for over 22 million patients. She also co-founded Africa CDC’s two-year Public Health Informatics Fellowship.

Rebecca O’Connor, PhD

Faculty, UW School of Nursing

Dr. O’Connor is among the authors featured in a new collection of manuscripts in Nursing Outlook, the Journal of the American Academy of Nursing, highlighting the impact of the Betty Irene Moore Fellowship for Nurse Leaders and Innovators. She was also inducted into the American Academy of Nursing, recognizing her significant contributions to nursing science, education and practice.

Jennifer T. Sonney, PhD, APRN, PPCNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN

Faculty, UW School of Nursing

Dr. Sonney has been named a recipient of both the 2026 National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners President’s Award and the Loretta C. Ford Distinguished Nurse Practitioner Award — the organization’s highest honor. This dual recognition reflects her exceptional leadership, scholarship and dedication to improving health outcomes for children and families at the state, national and international level.

Megan Streur, PhD, RN, ARNP

Associate Professor, Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics

Dr. Streur has been elected as a Fellow of the American Heart Association and inducted into the American Academy of Nursing. Her research focuses on the biological and behavioral mechanisms of symptoms and patient-centered outcomes in adults with cardiovascular disease, with a particular focus on atrial fibrillation. She also maintains an active clinical practice as a cardiac electrophysiology nurse practitioner at UW Medicine.

Brenda Kaye Zierler, PhD, RN, RVT, FAAN

Chair and Professor, Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics

Dr. Zierler has been named the 2026 recipient of the Carlos De La Pena Award for Excellence in Clinical and Translational Science. Recognized for a decade of transformative leadership as director of the Institute of Translational Health Sciences Team Science Core, her work developing leadership training programs, team-based communication tools and team writing toolkits has reached thousands of researchers. The award will be presented at ITHS EXPO 26 on May 12, 2026.

Oleg Zaslavsky, PhD

Faculty, UW School of Nursing

Dr. Zaslavsky has received a five-year, approximately $2.5 million NIH R01 award to develop and evaluate VOCALE Frailty — a scalable digital program designed to help older adults living independently manage frailty and maintain quality of life. The web-based intervention offers peer support, self-care resources and guided problem-solving tools tailored for older adults with limited digital literacy, and will be tested across 10 continuing care retirement communities.

When the Whole Person Walks Through the Door

For patients navigating severe mental health needs, physical health often suffers quietly alongside. MaryAnne Murray built a practice around refusing to let that happen.

For patients with severe mental health needs, physical health often suffers quietly alongside. Not because care does not exist, but because the system that is supposed to provide it was not designed with them in mind. For some, the fear of not being fully seen or treated with respect is the reason they stop seeking care altogether.

MaryAnne Murray, a psychiatric nurse practitioner based in Long Beach, Washington, believes that the intertwined nature of physical and mental health is an invitation to innovate. Her work in community health spans decades, beginning in 1991 as a chemical dependency counselor and continuing across mental health, addiction treatment, and rural care settings. Today, she cares for patients experiencing severe or persistent mental health crises, many of whom have gone years without consistent medical care. Her approach to co-occurring disorders, and to the physical health consequences of prolonged medical disconnection, is grounded in one conviction: patients deserve to feel safe, dignified, and better.

A Community Responsive Design

For many of MaryAnne’s patients, medication management appointments happen quarterly, creating a regular opportunity to connect with a practitioner. Though her specialty is psychiatric care, working alongside primary care providers in the same setting, including her husband, Dr. Dave Cundiff, made it possible to respond to needs that didn’t fit neatly into a single appointment type.

“Zelda,” one of MaryAnne’s patients, came in for a quarterly visit. During the appointment, MaryAnne noticed she was limping from a fall the day before. Rather than asking her to schedule a separate visit elsewhere, MaryAnne walked “Zelda” down the hall to Dr. Cundiff. That one visit, in a well-equipped building, created one less barrier to comprehensive care.

“Allen” was already in an appointment with Dr. Cundiff when he began experiencing emotional distress. The doctor came down the hall to find MaryAnne. Together, they listened as “Allen” described nightmares so severe that he was afraid to fall asleep, guided him through what he was experiencing, and stayed with him until he was calm. With added medication management through subsequent visits, “Allen” reported that the nightmares had stopped. He was sleeping well for the first time in his life.

Both “Zelda” and “Allen” had access to what they needed because psychiatric and primary care shared the same space and the same team.

What the research says, and what Washington needs

Washington ranks 32nd nationally for overall access to behavioral health care, and one in four residents lives with a behavioral health disorder. The gap between need and available care is not abstract. It appears in chaotic emergency department visits, in missed diagnoses, and in patients who go years without seeing a provider. Research compiled by SAMHSA on co-located psychiatric and primary care models shows that integration increases primary care visits among people with serious mental illness, improves health outcomes, and reduces emergency department use. The model works. Washington needs more of it.

“We treat the whole person — addressing physical, mental, and spiritual health without creating divisions between them,” MaryAnne said. “We’re also very aware of how social and environmental factors shape a person’s wellbeing.” – MaryAnne Murray

Head-and-shoulders portrait of a person with long brown hair wearing rectangular glasses, a pink top, and a purple patterned scarf, photographed indoors against a softly blurred background. — MaryAnne Murray

Head-and-shoulders portrait of a person with short gray hair wearing glasses, a dark suit jacket, a white shirt, and a red patterned tie, photographed against a plain gray background. — Dr. Dave Cundiff

MaryAnne and her husband, Dr. Cundiff, are both driven by a belief in integrated services. Not as a philosophy, but as a practice, they are willing to build from the ground up. Together, they are preparing to open Smart Moves Health, a clinic that will integrate primary care, psychiatry, and medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorders, with plans to expand services over time. To make it possible, they purchased a former clinic building and have spent years renovating it, investing their own resources to bring the space back into use. It is, in the most literal sense, an investment in the health of a community they believe in.

The structure of care shapes who it can reach

MaryAnne’s story points to something larger than a single practice model. Across Washington and beyond, psychiatric nurse practitioners are stepping into persistent gaps in behavioral health access, bringing clinical expertise alongside a nuanced understanding of the social and cultural realities that shape mental health. They are essential to closing this divide, recognizing needs that might otherwise go unseen, and building pathways to care where barriers once stood.

“Zelda” and “Allen’s” stories are examples of what becomes possible when care is designed around the whole person and delivered by clinicians equipped to meet them there.

MaryAnne Murray is an alumna of the University of Washington School of Nursing’s Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program, where she earned her Master of Nursing in 2011 and completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice in 2012.

Considering the impact you could make?

If this story connected with you, know that there is a place for you in it. Learn more about psychiatric and mental health nursing programs on our website, or sign up for an information session.

Patient names in this story are pseudonyms. Personal health information is protected in accordance with HIPAA regulations.

Miles for Mamas

The Distance They Carry

In rural Tanzania, women are known to walk six miles or more to reach a prenatal clinic. Some carry infants on their backs while riding motorcycles at seven or eight months pregnant, bearing the entire weight of the distance between their homes and the care their growing babies need.

When Jessie Jimenez, a DNP student at the University of Washington School of Nursing, witnessed what those miles cost while working in Tanzania, she felt compelled to act.

Most of the women she saw making that journey had no guarantee of finding a provider when they arrived. In areas where ultrasound is unavailable, both providers and patients are often left to make critical decisions without accurate information about how a pregnancy is progressing or the ability to detect complications that require urgent care. The ordinariness of this specific gap, the basic need to monitor a pregnancy in a timely, accurate way, felt extraordinary to Jessie. She returned to Seattle with one clear goal: to purchase an ultrasound machine for St. Maria de Mattias Hospital in Manyoni, Tanzania.

On March 29, the first Miles for Mamas 5K took place in Seattle. Dozens of runners and community members gathered to cover the distance for mothers who had traversed difficult journeys at every stage of their pregnancies to care for their growing families. Every dollar raised went toward purchasing the ultrasound. Every mile ran represented a hopeful outcome for the women Jessie met in Manyoni.

A need that belongs to everyone

Culturally responsive, clinically trained, and well-resourced nurses and birth workers remain among the most powerful interveners in cases of preventable maternal and fetal mortality. Accessible healthcare is still hard to come by in places where affordable transportation is scarce, equipment is outdated, and practitioners with broad scopes of practice are increasingly difficult to find. Stories like Jessie’s reflect a pattern: a nurse who saw more than a moment, more than a case, and built a pathway to safety where a barrier previously existed.

“People will go to great lengths to access care. The question is whether the system is willing to meet them part of the way.” – Jessie Jimenez

Jessie is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Nursing Practice in Population Health and Systems Leadership at the University of Washington School of Nursing.

Considering the impact you could make?

If this story connected with you, know that there is a place for you in it. Donations to the Miles for Mamas Project are still open on its GoFundMe website.

Learn more about global health nursing and graduate programs on our website, or sign up for an information session.

Hands that Meet the Moment

An ordinary morning at HealthPoint’s Kent Clinic quickly became something no one could have anticipated, and everything this team was prepared for.

In Washington state, millions of residents live in primary care shortage areas where geography, language, income or immigration status stand between a person and the care they need. The consequences are not abstract. According to the Washington State Department of Health, those gaps directly shape maternal health outcomes, and in rural and underserved communities, local clinics are often the last line of response.

At HealthPoint’s Kent Clinic, a Federally Qualified Health Center founded in 1971 to expand access to care, one seemingly ordinary morning became something no one could have anticipated, and a testament to the incredible impact of local, accessible, responsive care.

When the clinic becomes the delivery room

Dr. Cecilia Gilmore, a Nurse Midwife at HealthPoint’s Kent Clinic, was checking in on a pregnant patient when she noticed the woman couldn’t sit still. As a trained nurse and midwife, she asked the question any clinician would: “How long have you been feeling this way?”

HealthPoint’s Kent Clinic is not a labor and delivery unit, but when her patient answered, “Since this morning. Contracting every fifteen minutes. Now every five,” Cecilia understood that was about to change.

“I walked out, went to one of our pods and just said, ‘Hey, can someone call 911? We’re going to have a baby,'” said Cecilia.

Cecilia GilmoreDNP, CNM, ARNP

That morning, midwives, medical assistants and nurses came together to safely bring a baby into the world, ensuring both mother and child were healthy. Not because they had the right equipment, but because they had the right instinct, to meet the moment in front of them, whatever it asked.

Healthy maternal outcomes are not only the product of a well-timed, well-planned birth. Mothers, families and caregivers need to know that safe, responsive, quality care is accessible to them where they are, when they need it.

Washington needs more nurses

At the University of Washington School of Nursing, we advance nursing science and practice, educate future leaders and pioneer improvements in health and healthcare. And in pursuing healthcare for all, we must ask: who is being left out, and what can we build for them?

Letitia Salazar Monk, DNP, CNM, CLC, CH, ARNP

Cecilia Gilmore, DNP, CNM, ARNP, graduated from the University of Washington School of Nursing’s DNP Nurse-Midwifery program in March 2023. Letitia Salazar Monk, DNP, CNM, CLC, CH, ARNP, graduated from the same program in March 2022 and returned to the UW School of Nursing as faculty, where she now helps prepare the next generation of nurse midwives.

The UW Nurse-Midwifery program prepares graduates to practice at the highest level of clinical care. The choices Cecilia and Letitia have made in where and how they practice are exactly what that preparation makes possible. By showing up in community settings, responding to needs as they present and modeling care that is accessible and grounded in the people they serve, they bring what was learned in the classroom into the communities that need it most. For students watching them work, that is its own kind of education.

“When a colleague told me that Ceci and Letitia had cared for someone who delivered her baby in the clinic, managing the situation with calm, grace and care for everyone involved, my first thought was ‘of course they did.’ I have known both of them since arriving at UW and I know both to be excellent providers with the skill, compassion and awareness to handle any situation that comes their way. I’m so happy for the dyad they cared for. I know they were in amazing hands!”

Ellen SolisDNP, CNM, FACNM, Specialty Director, Nurse-Midwifery DNP

Considering the impact you could make?

If this story moved something in you, there may be a place for you in it. Visit the UW School of Nursing website to learn more about our graduate and undergraduate nursing programs, or sign up for an information session.

Husky Giving Day: One Student’s Story Shows the Power of Emergency Aid

When Yufei He, BSN, RN, was in her second quarter of the University of Washington’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, she received word that her father had suffered a stroke in China. Working while enrolled in school full time, she did not have enough money to purchase a plane ticket home.

She turned to the UW School of Nursing’s financial aid office, which connected her with the Fathi Emergency Fund for Nursing Students.

“The emergency fund was the one that paid my flight to China,” she said. “It really makes a difference to the students that are receiving it.”

The Fathi Emergency Fund provides immediate financial support to nursing students facing unexpected crises, covering urgent needs such as housing, food, medical expenses and transportation to clinical sites. The fund helps ensure that a sudden financial hardship does not force a student to leave the program.

“It’s always something happening in our life that’s unexpected,” she said. “Maybe we’re unable to finish school if we don’t have extra support.”

She graduated from the ABSN program in 2025 and is now a registered nurse.

UW Nursing Student Fiza Noman Explores Aging and Healthcare in Japan

Six smiling people pose for a group selfie in an indoor event space. They are standing close together, looking up at the camera, with patterned carpet and other attendees visible in the background. — Fiza Noman with fellow students in Japan

Fiza Noman, a nursing student at the University of Washington, participated in the Global Leader Training and International Exchange Program for Nursing students in Japan through the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging. The program brings together students from Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, China, Palestine and the United States to explore challenges related to aging societies and the role of nursing in global health.

During her time in Tokyo, Fiza completed hospital rotations and engaged in academic and cultural exchange activities. She participated in discussions and collaborative projects comparing healthcare approaches for older adults in Japan and other countries.

“I completed a slideshow towards the end of the program highlighting different healthcare models and approaches provided to older adults in Japan and other countries,” she said.

Reflecting on the experience, Fiza said, “This opportunity to collaborate with other nursing students and faculty from Japan and other foreign countries all over the world has been a great and lifetime experience. This not only allowed me to explore Japan’s community but also the healthcare system. I gained valuable friendships and perspectives from this program, which will continue to shape my journey as a nurse and expand my horizons and confidence to share my passion and work with a global health community.”

She also noted, “I learned how different healthcare systems address the needs of aging populations and how cultural values play a significant role. I gained a broader global perspective on nursing leadership and can now further advocate for older adults. This program strengthened my understanding of health equity, interdisciplinary teamwork and the importance of collaboration, which can make impactful changes.”

The program provided Fiza with firsthand experience in international nursing practices and offered insight into how cultural and systemic differences shape care for aging populations worldwide.

UW Nursing Student Hyunhae Hanni Lee Awarded Grant for Statistical Training and Dissertation Research

Hyunhae Hanni Lee, MS, RN, a PhD candidate and research assistant at the University of Washington School of Nursing, has been awarded a $5,000 grant to support advanced statistical training and research development from April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2027.

This funding will enable Lee to pursue an intensive summer training opportunity designed to deepen her expertise in biostatistics and strengthen the analytical rigor of her doctoral research. As part of this work, she will enroll in a specialized course in mediation analysis, directly supporting Aim 3 of her dissertation and enhancing her ability to examine complex relationships within her research.

In addition to formal coursework, a portion of the award will support access to advanced statistical software, providing essential tools to further her ongoing research activities.

This grant reflects a meaningful investment in Lee’s continued growth as a nurse scientist and recognizes her strong commitment to advancing her methodological expertise and doctoral scholarship.

Music, Memory, and a UW Nurse Researcher Making Seattle Headlines

Work by a UW PhD candidate in Nursing Science has caught the attention of two of Seattle’s most prominent outlets. Sarah McKiddy, a PhD candidate in Nursing Science at the University of Washington, was featured by The Seattle Times and Seattle Met for her work bringing professional musicians to the Memory Hub, a First Hill community center serving people living with dementia and their care partners.

Bridging Two Worlds

McKiddy came to nursing following her studies in music, and it was her work in the community as a violinist that led her to think more seriously about the connective power of music and the inequities that shape access to it. Those early observations led Sarah to wonder whether music might be part of a broader conversation on health behaviors, which ultimately drew her to nursing.

Her scholarly interests have since crystallized around cognitive health, aging and music-based interventions, with particular attention to cognitive resilience, nostalgia and the social and structural factors that shape dementia care.

The Research

McKiddy’s dissertation uses implementation science to explore how a performing arts organization and a dementia-specific community center can partner to co-design music-based programming, with professional musicians working alongside people living with memory loss and their care partners from the ground up. According to her profile on the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center website, her work explores how creative practices such as music can be infused into community and clinical settings to help sustain or reshape a sense of self and well-being across the lifespan.

McKiddy’s collaborative ethos is reflected in the project’s dissemination efforts as well. She is partnering with UW Ethnomusicology student Leo Freedman on a soundscape project that complements written and visual dissemination materials by allowing listeners to experience and re-experience the live music engagements for themselves like an aural scrapbook. She is also working with Sydney Horen from the UW School of Nursing Advancement team to create the community-partner-facing storytelling and design materials. The Memory Hub project brings this process-focused philosophy into practice. By bringing professional musicians into a dementia-specific center and studying how that collaboration unfolds, McKiddy is building an evidence base for cross-sector partnerships that could inform how arts and healthcare systems work together beyond Seattle.

A Growing Voice in Healthy Aging

McKiddy’s faculty mentor is Dr. Basia Belza, and she is a former de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging predoctoral scholar. She has been building toward this work since her undergraduate nursing studies, when she led an early literature review on music therapy and dementia, co-founded a chapter of the Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s and partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association Greater Idaho Chapter.

Her coverage in The Seattle Times and Seattle Met marks a meaningful moment of public recognition for research shaped by questions about how the arts intersect with individual and collective health and by scientific inquiry into what the arts have long revealed about human experience.

Women’s History Month: Women Shaping Nursing

During Women’s History Month, the University of Washington School of Nursing is recognizing the women whose leadership, scholarship, advocacy and care have shaped nursing across generations — and celebrating those carrying that work forward today.

At the UW School of Nursing, women have helped define what nursing can be: a field grounded in care, strengthened by science and expanded through leadership. School history reflects that legacy through leaders like Mary Tschudin, who helped build nursing research at UW; Rheba de Tornyay, who helped develop the School’s first PhD in nursing science; Kathryn Barnard, whose work advanced infant mental health; and Jeanne Quint Benoliel, who helped found the field of palliative and hospice care.

That same spirit of leadership continues in students like Marin Strong, a PhD in Nursing Science student whose recent appointment as a Sigma United Nations Youth Representative reflects not only personal achievement, but history in the making.

Strong was selected to represent Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing to the United Nations and the broader NGO community, joining a small group of youth representatives helping elevate nursing leadership on the global stage. In the role, she will participate in United Nations events, promote engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals and help advocate for the value of nursing leadership in addressing global health challenges.

For Strong, the opportunity is both deeply personal and part of a larger calling.

“At the heart of it for me is that I hope to amplify the impactful work nurses do every single day,” Strong said. “I also want to help nurses see the role they play in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. Global is local and local is global.”

Marin StrongPhD in Nursing Science student

Her appointment reflects a view of nursing that is expansive, interdisciplinary and deeply connected to the world beyond any one clinic, classroom or community. Strong brings experience across community and global health nursing, with work spanning Alaska, Texas, Washington and international settings including Indonesia, Nepal, India, South Africa and Brazil. She has contributed to research collaborations focused on HIV and STI prevention in Kenya and currently studies programs addressing opioid use disorder in the Seattle area.

Women’s History Month often invites us to look back at landmark achievements and the women who opened doors before us. It is also a chance to recognize leadership as it is unfolding in the present. Strong’s journey reflects a tradition long visible at the UW School of Nursing: women stepping into new spaces, asking bigger questions and helping shape the future of healthcare, research and public life.

The women who shaped nursing’s past did more than make room for others. They expanded the field itself. During Women’s History Month, Marin Strong’s story reminds us that this work continues — and that the future of nursing will be shaped by women who are already stepping forward.

UW Nursing PhD Student Appointed UN Youth Representative

Marin Strong, a PhD in Nursing Science student at the UW School of Nursing, has been selected as a Sigma United Nations (UN) Youth Representative, a prestigious volunteer position that will place her at the forefront of global nursing leadership and advocacy.

Strong is one of three youth representatives chosen to represent Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing to the United Nations and the non-governmental organization community. She joins a team of six UN liaisons who promote nursing leadership on the world stage.

“I was immediately floored and in disbelief that it was all actually happening. This is a position I have aspired to for years, and something a younger version of me could only have dreamed of,” said Strong. “The title feels much, much bigger than me right now, so I am excited to learn the ins and outs and grow into it.”

Marin StrongPhD in Nursing Science student

Three people seated outdoors as one person wearing blue scrubs guides another person's hands while they hold a dental model with removable teeth, with a third person observing beside them; a clipboard and chair are nearby. — In Nepal, Strong partnered with local and international dental providers to conduct remote mobile clinics, and aided in blood pressure screening prior to treatment and toothbrushing education.

The UN representative positions support Sigma’s engagement at the highest levels of global collaboration by attending and participating in various UN events, programs and activities. Representatives gather information to inform and advise Sigma’s global initiatives department, helping fulfill the organization’s mission to develop nurses anywhere to improve healthcare everywhere.

“At the heart of it for me is that I hope to amplify the impactful work nurses do every single day,” Strong said. “I also want to help nurses see the role they play in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. Global is local and local is global. But I don’t think we spend enough time showing nurses how true that is for them.”

Marin StrongPhD in Nursing Science student

Strong’s selection recognizes both her academic achievements and her potential to advocate for nursing on an international platform. As a PhD student, she brings a deep commitment to critical thinking, cross-disciplinary collaboration and evidence-based practice that she sees as inseparable from nursing leadership at any level.

A group of seven people standing together outdoors in a courtyard, wearing a mix of casual and traditional clothing, with building walls, doorways and greenery in the background. — In Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, India, Marin and her peers study aging and care by doing field-based community engagement work, comparing across sociocultural and geopolitical contexts in South Africa and Brazil in the same semester.

“Nurses make up an estimated 59% of all healthcare workers worldwide, totaling about 29 million strong. More than half of the global population is under 30 years old. This is why the voice of nursing and youth are so essential in global decision-making spaces like the UN — we are the majority,” Strong said. “Nurses are uniquely positioned to bridge policy and lived realities, seeing firsthand how these high-level decisions translate into real outcomes for patients and communities. Without nurses at the table, policies can stray and lose touch with the realities they are meant to address.”

Marin StrongPhD in Nursing Science student

Strong came to her PhD studies at the UW School of Nursing with a wealth of experience across community and global health nursing. Her career has taken her across the United States, from Alaska to Texas to Washington, as well as internationally, including living in Indonesia, researching maternal care-seeking for childhood illness in Nepal and studying globalization and care in India, South Africa and Brazil. She has been part of a research team collaborating across the U.S. and Kenya to improve HIV and STI prevention for pregnant women, and currently studies programs implementing mobile vans and street-based medication for opioid use disorder in the Seattle area. This summer, she will serve as a Strengthening Care Opportunities through Partnership in Ethiopia (SCOPE) fellow, supporting projects focused on obstetric fistula and maternal mental health.

Two people seated at a table in a radio studio, each speaking into a microphone, with shelves of CDs behind them and a digital wall clock displaying the time. — In Kotzebue, Alaska, Marin and her public health nursing colleague host a weekly radio spot to provide education on public health topics like vaccines, STI prevention and diabetes.

In her new role, Strong will attend and participate in UN events, advocate for the nursing profession on the international stage, promote engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals and help educate world leaders about Sigma and the value of nursing leadership in addressing global health challenges. She also hopes to increase visibility and understanding of what PhD-trained nurse scientists do.

“I want to accurately represent nurses as the incredibly smart, compassionate, innovative leaders we are,” she said. “My appointment also coincides with a massive retraction of U.S. involvement in these exact types of multilateral and multinational organizations. So it means even more to me to still have access to these spaces and show up with the trust, dignity and respect that are foundational to the nursing profession.”

Marin StrongPhD in Nursing Science student

According to Sigma, the UN representatives help educate world leaders about the organization and promote the value of nursing leadership in addressing global health challenges.

Three people standing together indoors in a covered open-air structure, with wooden posts and a concrete floor, posing for a photo with additional people and activity visible in the background. — In Cilacap, Indonesia, Marin has dinner with her first host family as a Rotary Youth Exchange Program student.

Strong also offered a message to other nursing students and early-career nurses with aspirations toward global health leadership: “Stay true to your values, identify your co-conspirators and look for the opportunities to help. My journey here was so nonlinear… the truth is, it was often messy, uncertain and full of unplanned side missions that totally transformed who I was and the way I saw the world. Actively see every opportunity as having something to teach you, especially those that stretch you beyond nursing and force you to step outside of yourself and your immediate world.”

For more information about Sigma’s United Nations representatives, visit the Sigma Global Nursing Excellence website.

de Tornyay Center Winter 2026 News Round-up

Winter 2026 news from the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging and our collaborators:

Congratulations to Oleg Zaslavsky and colleagues for receiving an NIH grant for their VOCALE Frailty digital program, which aims to support older adults with frailty.
The Dementia Action Collaborative released a flyer illustrating ways to lower your dementia risk.
UW School of Nursing emerita faculty member Marge Batey was featured on the cover of Seattle Parks & Recreation’s Lifelong Recreation guide!
Congratulations to PhD candidate and center illustrator Lalipat Phianhasin for receiving a Sigma Small Grant for the “Role of Social Support as a Social Determinant of Health in Functional Status and Cognitive Function among Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Survivors”!
The American Academy of Nursing recently put out a position statement on the use of AI, supporting “the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a transformative force in health care to support, rather than supplant human wisdom and nursing clinical judgment.”
A recent UW Bothell School of Nursing & Health Studies story highlighted visiting scholar Sayaka Suzuki’s trip to the UW, including the UW Healthy Aging Forum!
Basia Belza was a co-author on the recent PLOS One article, “Expanding rural access to chronic pain care through nurse care management: A hybrid type I effectiveness-implementation trial protocol.”
UW School of Nursing BSN student Julia Lee published an editorial in the Journal of Gerontological Nursing titled “The Lifespan Impact of Ageism Through the Lens of Self-Perceptions of Aging.”

Scholar Spotlight: Suah Park

Suah Park is a PhD in Nursing Science candidate and one of the de Tornyay Center’s 2025–2026 Healthy Aging Scholars. Her faculty mentor is Eeeseung Byun, and her project is titled, “Socio-contextual, Physical, and Psychological Factors Associated with Sleep Disturbances Among Korean Immigrant Older Adults: A Mixed Methods Study.”

What made you want to pursue a PhD in Nursing Science?

Working as a nurse practitioner, I realized that older adults are often prescribed multiple medications. I think there definitely is a need to develop or tailor non-pharmaceutical interventions. Seeing the growing emphasis on non-pharmaceutical approaches for older adults motivated me to pursue research in this area.

So through your research you’re hoping to help create and improve non-pharmaceutical interventions?

Yes, particularly regarding sleep, as sleep medications pose greater risks for older adults due to their significant side effects. These include increased risks of falls, dementia and confusion. In clinical practice, there are frequent alerts indicating that many sleep medications are not recommended for older adults.

How did you become interested in the area of sleep?

Originally, I’m from South Korea, where I finished my bachelor’s degree and worked in hospitals. After that, I moved to the United States and received my training to become a nurse practitioner at Virginia Commonwealth University. I got my first job as a nurse practitioner in a primary care clinic in South Tacoma seeing mainly Korean American older adults.

I noticed that some of my patients had depression and anxiety. But they didn’t express themselves by saying, “I have anxiety” or “I have depression.” Rather they would say, “I can’t sleep.” Many Asian Americans are reluctant to express their feelings because of stigma.

I tried to prescribe depression or anxiety medications, and they declined to take them due to stigma around mental health medications. But I noticed that once their sleep quality improved, their mood often improved as well. This observation is why I wanted to focus on sleep quality among older adults.

My dissertation is about sleep quality and sleep disturbance in Korean American immigrant older adults. There are already existing non-pharmacological interventions for sleep, but I would like to improve their implementation by accounting for cultural beliefs and practices regarding sleep.

So you were finding people are sometimes more open to treating the sleep problem, which can help with mental health?

Yes, and then, once I start a conversation about a sleep issue, patients become more open to addressing depression and anxiety. It’s a conversation like, “How do you sleep?” or “Do you sleep well?” And then they say, “I cannot fall asleep, my mind feels busy, I have many concerns.”

And then I suggest, “It seems that your sleep concern is coming from your mood. Can you talk to me about your mood?”

Then they’re more open to addressing their anxiety or depression. Also, they’re more likely to reveal their personal experiences. This approach is helpful when you need to start a conversation related to a mental health issue.

Could you briefly describe the project you’re doing with the de Tornyay Center Scholarship?

It’s a cross-sectional mixed-method study, designed to examine the association between socio-contextual, physical and psychological factors and sleep disturbance in Korean immigrant older adults.

Through the interviews, I’m going to explore the role of sleep-related beliefs and sleep hygiene practices as potential correlates of sleep disturbance. I will also explore culturally informed beliefs or perceptions and behaviors related to sleep through qualitative content analysis.

What are some of the cultural considerations related to sleep for Korean Americans?

The most common thing is that Koreans often connect sleep and diligence. In Korean culture, short sleepers are often perceived as more diligent, whereas sleeping longer can be viewed as a sign of laziness. They feel guilty about napping because of this. Also, there is a strong cultural preference for traditional and natural remedies for sleep, such as warm teas, foot baths, moxibustion, herbal medicine and meditation. Many Koreans tend to avoid sleep medications because they worry about potential dependence. Through interviews, I hope to better understand sleep beliefs and identify barriers to healthy sleep practices in this community.

Carrying the Torch: Black Nurses Who Shaped the UW School of Nursing and the Future of Nursing, Part 3

In Part 3 of our Black History Month series, we conclude by honoring Verna Hill, a nurse, scholar and community leader whose life reflects the enduring legacy of Black nurses in shaping the profession and expanding what care can look like.

In Part 1, we recognized Black nurses whose leadership, advocacy and mentorship strengthened both the profession and the UW community. Their work broke down barriers in education and practice, creating pathways for future generations while advancing more equitable models of care.

In Part 2, we looked further back, honoring Black nurses and caregivers who shaped nursing long before the profession fully opened its doors to them. From Civil War-era figures such as Sojourner Truth, Susie King Taylor, Harriet Tubman and Lucy Higgs Nichols to the “Black Angels” who provided critical care during the tuberculosis epidemic, these nurses practiced skilled, community-rooted care despite systemic exclusion and lack of formal recognition. Their contributions laid essential foundations for public health and health equity.

Now, in Part 3, we turn to Verna Hill’s story. Born in Hope, Arkansas, in 1927, she carried hope not as an abstract idea but as a daily practice. After navigating segregation and discrimination to earn her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1954, she built a career spanning public health, mental health nursing, international health exchange and mentorship. As a longtime leader in the Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization, she invested in scholarships, advocacy and community-building to ensure Black nurses would not walk alone.

Verna Hill’s life connects the throughline of this series: Black nurses have always shaped the profession—sometimes from the margins, often without recognition but always with vision. Her legacy reminds us that nursing is not confined to clinical walls. It is the ongoing work of seeing who is left out and building what should exist.

Read the full story

Carrying the Torch: Black Nurses Who Shaped the UW School of Nursing and the Future of Nursing, Part 2

The leadership demonstrated by UW-affiliated nurses is rooted in a much longer national history shaped by Black women who practiced nursing long before the profession was formally accessible to them.

Civil War-era nurses such as Sojourner Truth, Susie King Taylor, Harriet Tubman and Lucy Higgs Nichols provided skilled care to soldiers and civilians alike, laying early foundations for nursing practice in the United States. Later generations of community-based caregivers continued this work through public health nursing, midwifery and clinical practice, often in the absence of legal recognition, professional credentials or institutional support.

During public health emergencies, including the tuberculosis epidemic, Black nurses, referred to as the “Black Angels,” stepped into caregiving roles when others would not. They provided critical care within a health system that marginalized their labor and excluded their contributions from the historical record, underscoring the essential yet frequently unacknowledged role Black nurses played in advancing public health and health equity. We appreciate the opportunity to share their names and excerpts of their stories with our community.

Mary Eliza Mahoney

Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African American to graduate from an American nursing program in 1879. She worked to improve access and professional standards for African American nurses and was a co-founder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.

Adah Belle Thoms

Adah Belle Thoms was a nurse, educator and national leader whose advocacy challenged racial discrimination in nursing education and professional practice in the early 20th century. She served as acting director of nursing at Lincoln Hospital in New York and later became president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). Through her leadership and policy advocacy, Thoms worked to expand access to professional training and improve conditions for Black nurses nationwide.

Mabel Keaton Staupers

Mabel Keaton Staupers was a nurse, organizer and civil rights advocate whose leadership transformed opportunities for Black nurses in both civilian and military service. As executive secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, she led successful campaigns to end racial discrimination in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and the Navy Nurse Corps during World War II. Her efforts opened pathways for Black nurses to serve, lead and gain professional recognition within national health systems.

Betty Smith Williams

Betty Smith Williams was a public health nurse and educator who co-founded the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) in 1971 to address the exclusion of Black nurses from professional leadership and decision-making spaces. Through NBNA, Williams helped build a national network focused on mentorship, advocacy and health equity, creating lasting opportunities for Black nurses to lead across clinical practice, education, research and policy.

Together, these leaders laid the groundwork for greater inclusion in education, practice and leadership that continues to influence nursing today.

Organization Spotlight

Black Nurses Rock

Black Nurses Rock is a dynamic community and movement celebrating Black excellence in nursing. Through social media campaigns, mentorship programs and professional networking, they amplify the voices and achievements of Black nurses while inspiring students to enter the profession. The platform highlights contemporary Black nurse leaders, innovators and advocates who are shaping the future of healthcare.

American Association for the History of Nursing — Black Nurse Pioneers

The American Association for the History of Nursing preserves and shares the rich history of nursing, including dedicated resources on Black nurse pioneers who broke barriers and transformed healthcare. Their archives and educational materials document the contributions of trailblazers like Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first Black professional nurse, Estelle Massey Osborne, the first Black nursing faculty member at a major university, and many others whose courage and excellence paved the way for today’s diverse nursing workforce.

Carrying the Torch: Black Nurses Who Shaped the UW School of Nursing and the Future of Nursing, Part 1

During Black History Month, the University of Washington School of Nursing recognizes Black nurses whose contributions helped shape the profession and strengthen the UW community. Their work reflects a long history of leadership, advocacy, mentorship and commitment to equitable care that continues to inform nursing education and practice today.

Long before Black nurses gained equitable access to nursing education, licensure and leadership roles, they played essential roles in advancing healthcare and public health in the United States. Across generations, Black nurses provided care during public health crises and within communities facing limited access to medical services, often while working within segregated health and education systems that denied them access to formal training, professional recognition and advancement. Highlighting these histories helps place today’s achievements within a larger story of leadership, service and perseverance.

At the UW School of Nursing, their impact is part of the school’s history and its ongoing mission to prepare nurses who serve diverse communities.

First Black graduate of the University of Washington School of Nursing

Lela Duffel Morris

Lela Duffel Morris, BSN ’48, was the first Black graduate of the University of Washington School of Nursing, completing her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1948. Her graduation represented a powerful breakthrough during an era when Black students were largely barred from access to nursing education through segregated systems and discriminatory policies nationwide.

Morris pursued a career in public health nursing, focusing on community health and improving access to care. Her presence at the School of Nursing helped expand opportunities for future students of diverse backgrounds and contributed to the school’s broader efforts to become more inclusive.

Founding member of the Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization

Rachel Suggs Pitts

Rachel Suggs Pitts, BSN ’56, was one of Seattle’s few Black nurses in the 1940s. She completed her nursing training at Brewster Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, before relocating to Seattle, where she worked at Harborview Hospital, one of the first in the region to hire Black nurses. She later earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the UW School of Nursing in 1956.

Pitts was a founding member of the Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization (MMPNO), established in 1949, which continues to nurture generations of nurses, expand professional opportunities and advance public health services locally and regionally. Organizations such as MMPNO strengthened the profession by creating spaces for mentorship, leadership development and collective advocacy, supporting Black nurses as they advanced clinical practice, education and community health.

Deepened the UW School of Nursing’s engagement with anti-racism in nursing

Lois Price Spratlen

Lois Price Spratlen, PhD ’76, served on the faculty of the University of Washington School of Nursing and held leadership roles focused on diversity, equity and conflict resolution. She was appointed as UW Ombudsman for Sexual Harassment in 1982 and later served as University Ombudsman, becoming the first woman, first professional nurse and first African American to hold that role.

Spratlen’s work extended across teaching, mediation, scholarship and advocacy. She authored African American Registered Nurses in Seattle: The Struggle for Opportunity and Success, which documents the experiences of Black nurses in the region who provided skilled, compassionate care to Black patients and communities who were often dismissed, undertreated or denied care within segregated health systems. As a leader within the Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization, she helped to establish an endowment that supports student scholarships to this day.

Her commitment to mentorship, equity and institutional change helped deepen the UW School of Nursing’s engagement with diversity and inclusion, leading to the development of the Manning Price Spratlen Center for Anti-Racism & Equity in Nursing (MPS CARE in Nursing), the nation’s first and only center dedicated to anti-racism in nursing. We are deeply grateful for her leadership and legacy.

Celebrate Black History Month in the Community

Black History Month 2026 opportunities

Northwest African American Museum — Ongoing exhibits and events celebrating Black history, art and culture.

UW Tacoma — 100th Year Anniversary Event — BUILD Black History Month — A celebration of 100 years of Black History Month featuring keynote speaker Professor Luther Adams and Tacoma Poet Laureate Mari Griffin. The event was held Feb. 20, 2026, from 1 – 4 p.m. at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma.

The City of Bellevue and Bellevue Arts Museum partnered to host Melodies of the Diaspora: Celebrating 100 Years of Black History Month, a special art exhibition honoring the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. The exhibition featured paintings, photography, sculptures, textiles and fashion at Bellevue Arts Museum and Bellevue City Hall throughout February 2026.

More Black History Month 2026 opportunities

Organization Spotlight

National Black Nurses Association (NBNA)

Founded in 1971, the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) represents over 150,000 Black nurses across the United States. The organization is dedicated to advancing health equity, advocating for quality healthcare in underserved communities and supporting the professional development of Black nurses. NBNA provides scholarships, leadership opportunities and resources that empower the next generation of Black nursing professionals.

The HistoryMakers — Black Nurses Collection

The nation’s largest African American video oral history archive includes extensive interviews with pioneering Black nurses. These first-person narratives provide invaluable insight into the lived experiences of nurses who integrated hospitals, challenged discrimination and advanced the profession.

UW Nursing Simulation Center Earns INACSL Endorsement for Excellence in Healthcare Simulation

SEATTLE — Feb. 6, 2026 — The University of Washington School of Nursing Simulation Center has earned the INACSL Healthcare Simulation Standards Endorsement™, awarded to programs that demonstrate excellence in evidence-based healthcare simulation education.

Granted by the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL), the endorsement recognizes simulation programs that consistently apply the Healthcare Simulation Standards of Best Practice®—a nationally recognized framework that guides simulation design in preparation and briefing, facilitation, professional integrity and debriefing.

For UW Nursing, the endorsement affirms the central role simulation plays in preparing nurses to meet the realities of modern healthcare practice.

High-quality simulation is essential to how we prepare nurses who are ready to lead in complex clinical environments. This recognition reflects the expertise of our Simulation Center team and our responsibility to uphold the highest standards in nursing education.

Hilaire ThompsonExecutive Dean, UW School of Nursing

Preparing Nurses for Real-World Care

The UW School of Nursing Simulation Center supports learners across undergraduate, graduate and continuing education programs. Through immersive, learner-centered simulation experiences, students develop clinical judgment, teamwork, communication skills and confidence in a safe and supportive environment—before entering real clinical settings.

Simulation scenarios are intentionally designed and grounded in evidence-based practices, allowing students to practice high-stakes decision-making, reflect during structured debriefings and learn from both success and failure without risk to patients.

This endorsement affirms the rigor and intention behind every simulation experience we design and facilitate. From pre-briefing to debriefing, our work is focused on building clinical judgment, confidence and readiness that directly translates to patient care.

Nicola ContrerasDirector, UW School of Nursing Simulation Center

A National Mark of Excellence

Earning the INACSL endorsement places the UW School of Nursing Simulation Center among a select group of programs recognized for excellence in healthcare simulation. It also reinforces UW Nursing’s leadership as a top-ranked nursing school committed to innovation, continuous improvement and patient safety.

The Simulation Center will be formally recognized at INACSL26 in June, where endorsed institutions are celebrated for their contributions to advancing simulation education.

As UW Nursing celebrates the 55th year of educating nurse practitioners, this recognition reflects both a strong foundation and a forward-looking commitment to preparing nurses and advanced practice nurses who will advance health equity, quality and safety across Washington state and beyond.

Learn more about the UW School of Nursing Simulation Center:

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UW Nursing Doctoral Student Awarded Phyllis Gutiérrez-Kenney Fellowship

Rosario Jazmin Ruiz Gonzalez, a second-year Doctor of Nursing Practice student at the UW School of Nursing specializing in Population Health and Systems Leadership, has been selected for the Latino Center for Health’s 7th Annual Phyllis Gutiérrez-Kenney Graduate Student Scholars Fellowship Program.

Established in 2019 and renamed in honor of former Washington state representative Phyllis Gutiérrez-Kenney, the fellowship addresses the critical shortage of bilingual and bicultural health professionals in Washington state. The program provides $5,000 in funding to each scholar and brings together an interdisciplinary cohort of up to 16 graduate students from universities across Washington.

Beyond financial support, the fellowship offers mentorship opportunities with faculty and community leaders, professional development through research presentations and workshops and the chance to build a statewide network of peers committed to advancing Latinx health equity. Over its six-year history, the program has supported approximately 72 graduate student scholars, investing over $390,500 in developing the next generation of healthcare leaders.

Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and raised in Yakima, Washington, Ruiz Gonzalez earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Heritage University in 2023. Her experiences interpreting for her parents and witnessing health disparities in her Latine community inspired her commitment to creating more equitable healthcare systems.

Through the fellowship, Ruiz Gonzalez will participate in collaborative learning and professional development activities between January and May 2026. She aspires to return to the Yakima Valley as a nursing professor, empowering the next generation of nurses to advocate for underserved communities and continuing the UW School of Nursing’s commitment to advancing health equity across Washington state.

A Year of Growth at the Digital Health Innovation Hub

The Hub is gaining recognition from peer institutions and professional organizations, shining a brighter spotlight on the importance of nurse-led digital health innovation.

This past year has been an incredible ride for the Digital Health Innovation Hub. When we launched, the goal was simple: build a space where education, research and clinical innovation could truly come together. Looking back, it feels like we’re well on our way.

On the education side, we hosted our first series of Fireside Chats featuring nurse innovators who are reshaping patient-centered care. We welcomed trailblazers like Elena Bosque, ARNP, MS, PhD, from Seattle Children’s, winner of the 2024 NurseHack4Health Pitch-A-Thon and a leader in AI solutions for peripheral IV failure, and Jo Masterson, RN, MBA, CEO of 2Morrow, whose work expands access to evidence-based digital health tools. They shared honest, energizing stories about entrepreneurship and the realities of bringing nurse-led ideas into the world. These sessions sparked meaningful conversations across students, faculty, staff and our broader community. At the time of publication, we were already gearing up for our next chat in winter 2026 and our inaugural AI Summit in spring 2026, where national nursing voices in AI would take the stage.

On the research front, the Hub has quickly become a go-to resource. We offered seed funding for teams working with new tools and technologies, provided hands-on consultation for students and faculty exploring tech-enabled approaches and even secured support from several major tech partners. At the time of publication, details about those partnerships remained under embargo.

Clinically, we were excited to support several nurse-led small-business collaborations, including a team developing practical, scalable tools to improve inpatient critical care. One standout project tackled IV-line entanglement with a low-cost, tech-forward design, a simple but meaningful fix to a daily clinical challenge.

And the word is getting out. Nationally, the Hub is gaining recognition from peer institutions and professional organizations, shining a brighter spotlight on the importance of nurse-led digital health innovation.

All in all, it’s been an inspiring start—and we’re just warming up. The energy and creativity across our community make me confident that momentum will only grow from here, empowering nurses to lead the next wave of health-tech innovation.

Oleg Zaslavsky
Associate Professor
Director, Digital Health Innovation Hub
Biobehavioral Nursing & Health Informatics

Nurse Practitioner Week 2025

Celebrating Nurse Practitioner Week: November 9–15, 2025

During Nurse Practitioner Week 2025, we joined healthcare organizations across the nation in honoring nurse practitioners (NPs) who play a vital role in delivering quality healthcare to our communities.

A Legacy of Excellence

For over 60 years, nurse practitioners have been delivering trusted care across America. Today, more than 461,000 NPs provide nearly 1 billion patient visits annually, serving as advanced practice registered nurses who deliver comprehensive healthcare services—from diagnosing and treating acute and chronic conditions to prescribing medications and coordinating patient care. With their unique blend of clinical expertise and holistic approach to patient wellness, NPs have become essential pillars of our healthcare system.

Making a Difference Every Day

Whether working in primary care, specialty practices, hospitals or community clinics, nurse practitioners are often the first point of contact for patients seeking care. They build lasting relationships with their patients, taking time to listen, educate and empower individuals to take charge of their health. In underserved areas, NPs frequently fill critical gaps in healthcare access, ensuring that all communities receive the care they deserve.

A Well-Earned Recognition

National Nurse Practitioner Week is held annually not only to celebrate these exceptional healthcare providers but also to remind lawmakers of the importance of removing outdated barriers to practice. When NPs are allowed to practice to the full extent of their experience and education, communities benefit from increased access to high-quality, patient-centered care.

During this special week, we celebrate the clinical skills, knowledge, compassion, dedication and unwavering commitment to patient advocacy that nurse practitioners bring to their work. They balance the science of medicine with the art of healing, making a profound difference in countless lives every single day.

Our Commitment to Excellence

Our Doctor of Nursing Practice program is proud to be part of this 60+ year legacy. For over 20 years, we’ve educated and trained exceptional nurses to become NPs who make community care accessible and local. Our graduates serve as integral leaders in diverse healthcare settings, translating leading-edge research into better patient outcomes and ensuring that quality healthcare reaches every corner of our communities.

To all the nurse practitioners out there: Thank you. Your expertise, empathy and tireless efforts do not go unnoticed. During Nurse Practitioner Week and every week, we honor your commitment to excellence in healthcare.

During Nurse Practitioner Week 2025, we invited our community to celebrate the NPs in their lives by sharing appreciation and gratitude on our social media channels.

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Celebrating Excellence in Nursing Research

2025 Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing

We are incredibly proud to announce that four exceptional UW nursing faculty members have been inducted as 2025 Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing!

This prestigious recognition honors nurses who have made extraordinary contributions to health and healthcare through their groundbreaking research and leadership.

Their innovative work is transforming healthcare delivery, advancing health equity and improving lives. We are honored to have these distinguished scholars as part of our UW Nursing community!

Congratulations to our 2025 AAN Fellows!

Eeeseung Byun, PhD, RN

Research in symptom management and technology-based interventions to support stroke survivors.

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Katie A. Haerling, PhD, RN, CHSE

Simulation research to identify the most effective ways to prepare healthcare professionals.

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M. Rebecca O’Connor, PhD, RN

Research in how to combat clinical assumptions made by healthcare professionals that contribute to medical errors, disparities and patient harm.

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Megan Streur, PhD, ARNP

Research in biological and behavioral mechanisms in cardiovascular disease to improve patient outcomes and enhance quality of life.

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de Tornyay Center Receives the 2025 Faye Glenn Abdellah Leadership Award

Basia Belza, Hilaire Thompson and Betty Bekemeier holding FNINR awards — From left: Basia Belza, Professor of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics and Director of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging (accepting the Leadership Award on behalf of the center); Hilaire Thompson, Executive Dean of the UW School of Nursing; and Betty Bekemeier, Professor and Director of the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice, Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing (Path-Paver Award recipient).

On October 15, 2025, the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINR) awarded the 2025 Faye Glenn Abdellah Leadership Award to the UW School of Nursing’s de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging. The award was presented at the FNINR annual gala in Washington, D.C.

Numerous other UW School of Nursing faculty were in attendance, including Betty Bekemeier (pictured above), Professor and Director of the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice, Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, who also received the Welch/Woerner Path-Paver Award from FNINR for “her exceptional leadership and breakthroughs in health equity, child, family, and population health nursing.”

As described by FNINR, “the Faye Glenn Abdellah Leadership Award is named for the renowned nurse researcher whose vision has resulted in inestimable value created by nurse scientists over the years. The recipient will be an organization or individual with a sustained or lasting impact on nursing science through advocacy, institutional leadership, or an individual program of research that has led to public awareness of the value of nursing science in improving health at the individual and/or population levels.”

The de Tornyay Center is the first center to receive the Faye Glenn Abdellah Leadership Award since its inception in 2018. The center joins a cohort of remarkable recipients, including former UW School of Nursing Dean Dr. Nancy Fugate Woods.

The award recognizes the center’s more than 25 years of supporting nursing science. In that time, the center has mentored over 165 scholars, awarded more than $750,000 in research funding to students and $200,000 to faculty for pilot studies. Center grants have created new partnerships and led to further funding and scientific publications. Many of the center’s alumni attribute their career success and passion for research to its mentorship, underscoring its impact on shaping the next generation of nurse scientists and leaders in healthy aging.

“I participated as a de Tornyay Undergraduate Research Scholar when I was getting my BSN… I did a project about spirituality and aging and presented it at a de Tornyay Center event. It was a small project, but it allowed me to see the whole research process. That experience was transformative for me and inspired my interest in research. After graduation I joined the US Navy Nurse Corps and didn’t immediately pursue graduate education or research. Eventually, I found my way back and I want to say thank you for the part the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging played in my development as a nurse scholar.” — Katie A. Haerling, BSN ’03 and 2025 AAN Fellow inductee

The center bridges nursing, medicine, social work, public health, informatics and other health sciences to develop, evaluate and implement innovative interventions for older adults. Center affiliates lead pioneering research on frailty, dementia care, physical activity, digital health solutions and more. de Tornyay Center alumni and international collaborators play a central role in innovative, aging-focused research and educational initiatives in Thailand, China, Taiwan, Germany and beyond.

“I think the center does miracles. I have vivid memories of years ago, gerontological nursing was looked down upon as an area of study and nursing science. The center has elevated it to its important focus!” — Fran Lewis, UW School of Nursing faculty

The de Tornyay Center is named for Dr. Rheba de Tornyay, a leader and pioneer in gerontological nursing who also recognized the importance of training the next generation of nurse scientists. In 1998, she and her husband Rudy endowed the center with a vision that it would play an integral role in healthy aging by leading innovative research, training nurse scientists across their career trajectories, advancing clinical practice, fostering local, national and international collaborations and influencing policy to improve the lives of all older adults. The center is proud to carry on Dr. de Tornyay’s legacy of excellence in gerontological nursing education, research and practice today.

“I am grateful to Rheba and Rudy de Tornyay and all our donors for their belief in the mission of the center. Thank you to our Dean, Hilaire Thompson, for her unwavering support of the center, to our innovative community partners who are improving care for older adults, to our former Center directors who have led with the vision for advancing nursing science, to our center staff who are integral members of our team, to our faculty who research cutting-edge topics, and to our students who ask the tough questions, represent the future of nursing science, and carry forward Dr. de Tornyay’s vision.” — Basia Belza, de Tornyay Center director, on receiving the award

As the world faces an aging population and increasing demands for aging-centric healthcare solutions, the de Tornyay Center remains at the forefront, driving discoveries that influence clinical practice, inform public policy and empower communities. The de Tornyay Center’s ongoing efforts to mentor emerging nurse scientists, foster research collaborations and pioneer solutions to pressing gerontological health challenges ensure that its impact will endure for generations to come.

2025 Doctor of Nursing Practice Clinical Preceptors of the Year

Behind every successful DNP student stands a dedicated clinical preceptor, an unsung hero in nursing education.

These mentors don’t just excel in clinical practice and community service; they guide, inspire and shape the future of advanced practice nursing and leadership in systems and population health.

Meet our 2025 Preceptors of the Year

In fall 2025, we were proud to celebrate our Clinical Preceptors of the Year, exceptional leaders whose impact reaches far beyond the clinic. Their dedication strengthens our program and elevates the future of healthcare.

The 2025 Clinical Preceptors of the Year were celebrated at the Nurses of Influence Awards Ceremony on Nov. 6, 2025, in Oak Hall, Denny Room, at the University of Washington, Seattle campus.

From Hospital Hallways to Dairy Farms: Natalie Rejto’s Journey of Healing Across Boundaries

Natalie Rejto with livestock — Natalie Rejto is a pioneering researcher whose work transcends traditional boundaries between human health, animal welfare and environmental sustainability.

In a dairy barn far from any hospital, Natalie Rejto moves through the milking parlor alongside workers who can diagnose a cow’s health with a glance. She’s collaborating with veterinarians and industry leaders on infection prevention, but here the experts are the farmers themselves—and Natalie has learned that the best solutions emerge when she listens to what they already know.

The scene captures the essence of Natalie’s remarkable journey, from bedside nurse to pioneering researcher whose work transcends traditional boundaries between human health, animal welfare and environmental sustainability.

Nurses have a very unique perspective. Especially working in the hospital setting, that direct interaction, patient teaching, the nursing approach… it can be really valuable in research.

Natalie RejtoNurse scientist

Unlikely Beginnings

Natalie’s path to becoming a researcher wasn’t one she initially envisioned for herself. Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, in a low-income household, her educational journey had been unconventional. She had to withdraw from high school during her junior year but earned her GED the following year. Completing her education was a significant achievement. When she became a nurse in 2008 after earning her BSN from the University of Arizona, she considered it the pinnacle of her educational journey.

“I never considered going back to school,” she admits. “I didn’t think it would be an option for me.”

Her trajectory changed in 2015 while working at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she became a nursing bioethics liaison. This role awakened her passion for worker health and well-being advocacy. A pivotal conversation with Dr. Elaine Walsh, a faculty member in Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington School of Nursing, opened her eyes to new possibilities.

Natalie Rejto's dissertation presentation — Natalie Rejto completed her PhD in June 2024, focusing on sleep health among nurses and how sleep hygiene can reduce shift work impacts.

“She really encouraged me to pursue further education based on my interests and my overarching goals in life,” Natalie says.

After speaking with PhD students and connecting with faculty like Butch de Castro, whose work aligned with her interest in worker health, Natalie applied to the doctoral program. She completed her PhD in June 2024, focusing on multidimensional sleep health among nurses and investigating whether sleep hygiene can modify the impacts of shift work.

One Health: A Holistic Approach

At the time of this profile, Natalie served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington’s Center for One Health Research (COHR), working with Dr. Peter Rabinowitz and Vickie Ramirez. The center’s philosophy—“healthy people, healthy animals, healthy environment”—deeply resonated with Natalie’s vision.

It really aligned with a nursing model of care. You take into account the person within their built environment, natural environment, animals… there’s not these little separations. It all exists together.

Natalie RejtoNurse scientist

Her postdoctoral research exemplified this interconnected approach. Working with dairy farms in Eastern Washington, Natalie and her colleagues used a collaborative approach, partnering with industry, workers and experts across disciplines, including veterinarians. Together, they developed practical infection prevention strategies to protect workers from zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 and avian influenza.

The research involved visits to farms to understand daily tasks and evidence-based technologies already in place and to build partnerships with industry and workers. In collaboration with the Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center (PNASH), they conducted a survey and developed modules focused on practical strategies to promote worker health. Funding and support for the project were provided by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries’ Safety & Health Investment Projects (SHIP).

Healing Across Communities

Perhaps most meaningful to Natalie was her volunteer work with Seattle’s One Health Clinic, which serves people experiencing homelessness and their companion animals.

The work being done at the One Health Clinic addresses human care and animal care and really acknowledges that human-animal bond and shared environment. Building trust among people experiencing homelessness is really special and sustaining.

Natalie RejtoNurse scientist

In uncertain times in academia, Natalie found this work grounding and inspiring. It exemplified the principle that healing transcends traditional boundaries—between species, environments and communities.

A Bridge Between Worlds

What makes Natalie’s approach unique is her ability to bridge different worlds: the clinical experience of being a bedside nurse with the analytical mindset of a researcher; the urban healthcare setting with rural agricultural communities; human medicine with veterinary science. This transdisciplinary collaboration became one of the most rewarding aspects of her work.

“With research, especially coming after 15 years as a bedside nurse, I felt very comfortable in that kind of collaboration and communication,” she reflects. “It’s been just this amazing opportunity to hopefully bring what I’ve learned from nursing science to be able to work with folks in the Center for One Health.”

She points out that nurses have already witnessed the power of the human-animal bond in healthcare settings through experiences with pet therapy and emotional support animals in hospitals.

Advice for Future Nurses

For aspiring nurses considering their career paths, Natalie offers encouraging words:

Nurses do incredible work. The work is very challenging. You’re thinking on your feet and synthesizing lots of information into practice, and it can seem really daunting and intimidating, at least it was for me, the thought of going for higher education. But I would say if you can do nursing and you want it and you have the passion for it, you can do higher education. From my experience, the faculty are really supportive and want you to succeed.

Natalie RejtoNurse scientist

Her story demonstrates that nursing can lead to unexpected and fulfilling paths, even to dairy farms in Eastern Washington or clinics serving populations experiencing homelessness and their companion animals. It’s a testament to how nursing’s holistic approach to health can extend far beyond hospital walls, creating healing across all boundaries.

— Jennifer Hunt

From Kenya to UW: Harriet Fridah Adhiambo’s Journey to Transform HIV Care

When Harriet Fridah Adhiambo first arrived at the University of Washington in September 2021, she carried with her more than just her nursing degree from Kenya—she brought a mission forged from years of witnessing the devastating impact of HIV in her home country.

“I think it has been a transformative journey for me,” reflects Adhiambo, now in the final stretch of her PhD in Nursing Science at the UW School of Nursing. Just weeks away from her dissertation defense, she looks back on four years that have reshaped her as a researcher, a clinician and a global health advocate.

Finding Purpose Through Direct Experience

Adhiambo’s path to nursing and HIV research began unexpectedly after high school when she took a position as a research assistant collecting data about tuberculosis patients in Kenyan villages.

The living conditions were dilapidated, and it really wasn’t good because some of them were not able to access medication. We had lots of mortality. You could go to a village to conduct a survey and be told, ‘We’ve lost three or four family members here because of HIV and tuberculosis.’ It was devastating.

Harriet Fridah AdhiamboPhD in Nursing Science student

That experience, combined with losing someone in her family during childbirth, steered her toward nursing with a specific focus: improving outcomes for people with HIV.

Building a Bridge Between Research and Care

After completing her nursing education, Adhiambo worked at a private healthcare facility where she encountered many young women, some as young as 15 or 16, who were pregnant, had young babies and were HIV positive.

I realized the gap is in health education. Some of them were not really aware of how transmission occurs, and that there was medication that someone can take to prolong life.

Harriet Fridah AdhiamboPhD in Nursing Science student

Taking initiative, she developed a health education plan for the facility before moving on to join a U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)-funded program focusing on prevention of mother-to-child transmission services and cervical cancer screening for women living with HIV.

“It was motivating for me to offer these services because I could see how babies were thriving. You give this woman medication for the baby to prevent transmission, and at the end of nine months, they’re HIV negative,” Adhiambo says. “That was good. I got satisfaction and it was evident that the interventions were working.”

From Implementation to Innovation

After gaining hands-on experience implementing HIV care strategies, Adhiambo wanted to take the next step: designing the interventions themselves. She joined the Kenya Medical Research Institute as a study nurse, working on innovative approaches like text messaging systems and conditional cash transfers to improve HIV care engagement.

My experience working with this organization was that these interventions were working. They were working, and you could see people are being engaged in care. People are taking their medication, they’re coming to the clinic as scheduled.

Harriet Fridah AdhiamboPhD in Nursing Science student

It was during a short course at the UW School of Public Health that Adhiambo met Dr. Sarah Gimbel, who would later become her dissertation chair. Initially interested in pursuing a Master of Public Health, Adhiambo was encouraged to apply to the PhD in Nursing Science program instead—a decision she calls “the best I made.”

Navigating Challenges with Resilience

Adhiambo’s academic journey hasn’t been without challenges. She arrived with her husband and son, gave birth to another child during her PhD program and had to adjust to new educational technologies and approaches.

“I remember my first week, people were talking about an assignment being submitted, and I didn’t know what people were talking about,” she laughs, recalling her initial unfamiliarity with Canvas, UW’s learning management system. “By the time I’ve been told, ‘You have to log into Canvas, this is where you check,’ I was having my first assignment due that day at midnight. It was crazy.”

But Adhiambo quickly learned to navigate the system and seek support when needed. “I came to learn about it, like, things can work for you. You just need to know whom to ask. And at times, don’t be shy about your challenges as a person.”

Looking to the Future: Integrating HIV and Cancer Care

As she completes her PhD, Adhiambo is focusing on the intersection of HIV and cancer care, a critical area as people living with HIV face elevated risks for certain cancers.

I’m aiming to build a program that intersects both HIV and cancer, trying to improve outcomes of people who are having cancer but at the same time are HIV positive. If you’re HIV positive and you have cancer, what’s the best care we can give you? What strategies have worked to improve your health outcomes?

Harriet Fridah AdhiamboPhD in Nursing Science student

Adhiambo has been applying for postdoctoral positions that would allow her to continue this vital work, collaborating with researchers like Dr. Sarah Gimbel, Dr. Vitor Oliveira and Dr. Allison Webel on domestic HIV research while maintaining her connections to Kenya.

“What is working here that can work in my country? Because HIV is a global problem,” she emphasizes. “And also, what works in my setup that can work in the US, to just advance HIV care, aiming at reducing new infections.”

Advice for International Students

For other international students considering a similar path, Adhiambo offers encouraging advice: “There are lots of resources here. There are lots of opportunities that you can learn from, and there is opportunity for growth. The School of Nursing offers those opportunities through the resources that they have available for us.”

She emphasizes the importance of asking questions, networking and being open to learning experiences—even unpaid ones—that build skills and connections.

Feel free to ask questions. Just put yourself out there. This is what I want to do, and you’ll get all the help that you need from this department.

Harriet Fridah AdhiamboPhD in Nursing Science student

As she prepares for her dissertation defense and takes steps toward the next phase of her career, Adhiambo remains guided by the perspective that has brought her this far: “It’s just your attitude will get you to where you want to be. You have to see it and go for it.”

With her dedication to improving HIV care across continents and her commitment to addressing the emerging challenges of cancer in people living with HIV, Harriet Fridah Adhiambo exemplifies the global impact of UW School of Nursing scholars. She’s transforming healthcare one patient, one study and one innovation at a time.

— Jennifer Hunt

2025 Convocation Awards

We are thrilled to announce the 2025 Convocation Awards. Each year, faculty and students are nominated by their peers for various awards. We recognize outstanding faculty who are educating the next generation of nurse leaders and dedicated nursing students who have shown exceptional qualities during their time at the School of Nursing.

Faculty Awards

The DAISY Nurse Educator Award recognizes faculty who exemplify the attributes of an exemplary educator, outstanding role model and inspirational influence on their nursing students.

Recipient: Christopher Linton, MN, RNC-OB/EFM/MNN

“Chris truly demonstrates the qualifications required to receive the DAISY award. He has been the most supportive clinical instructor and has greatly influenced me in pursuing a career in obstetrics. Chris always greets us with a smile on his face and is ready to lead us to success during our clinical days. He offers a safe learning environment during clinical days and always mentions continuing to support us even after this quarter. Super thankful to have him as my OB instructor!” — Danalin Matro, nominator

The Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award recognizes faculty who create safe, supportive learning environments, demonstrate compassion and patience and respect students as adult learners honing their professional clinical skills.

Recipient: Jess Jajesnica, DNP, MSN, ARNP, PMHNP-BC

“Dr. Jess demonstrates experience in the classroom and in the private sector. She is able to clearly articulate the steps of the PMHNP process. She provided me with valuable and constructive feedback that helped me improve my final project. She is the best teacher of the year.” — Reyes Alvarado Herrera, nominator

“Jessica has been a mentor and advocate for student learning in the DNP PMHNP program. She has demonstrated compassion and empathy to students throughout the program, offering guidance, wisdom and encouragement throughout the process. She volunteers her time to students outside of scheduled class and office hours, and checks in with students individually. She has been a role model for how to be an educator, mentor and adviser. Jess makes sure to connect the dots between theory of nursing and frameworks and applications to DNP projects, as well as in PMHNP practice.” — Wen Murphy, nominator

The Excellence in Promoting Diversity through Teaching Award recognizes faculty who create inclusive and equitable learning environments that value diverse perspectives and experiences.

Recipient: Jean Tang, PhD, PMHNP-BC, APRN

“Dr. Tang is committed to addressing social health disparities, privilege, and identity in her teaching, research, and clinical practice, consistently integrating anti-oppression principles into her mentorship. With a deep respect for diverse cultures, she actively seeks to learn from and about perspectives different from her own, ensuring that all students receive culturally relevant, non-oppressive education tailored to their unique learning needs.” — Emily Yoon Ji Suh, nominator

The Sandra Eyres Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award honors faculty who inspire critical thinking, foster professional growth, model ethical leadership and create inclusive, dynamic learning environments where graduate students thrive.

Recipient: Katie Kemble, DNP, ARNP, FNP-C, AOCNP, FAANP

“In working through our DNP projects in NMETH 801, we ran into numerous operational road blocks or administrative challenges. Dr Kemble and her no-problem attitude and creative approach to virtually any challenge helped us to stay calm and collected under major time pressure. She is an excellent mentor and a great leader and epitomizes the DNP faculty who can creatively solve virtually any challenge while staying grounded in evidence-based practice in translational research.” — Devon Woodley, nominator

The Rheba de Tornyay Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award recognizes a faculty member who inspires creative and critical thinking, fosters dynamic learning environments, integrates evidence-based practices and honors students as active partners in their education.

Recipient: Nicola Contreras, DNP, RN, CHSE-A

The Nursing Research Mentorship Award recognizes faculty who have made exceptional contributions to advancing nursing science and practice-based inquiry through dedicated research mentorship.

Recipient: Kerryn W. Reding, PhD, MPH, RN

“Dr. Reding exemplifies the qualities of an outstanding research mentor—she is patient, supportive, and deeply invested in her students’ success. She provides structured yet flexible guidance, allowing students to develop independence while feeling fully supported. Her mentorship has had a profound impact on my academic journey, and I cannot imagine a more deserving recipient of this award.” — Hongyu Yu, nominator

“I was fortunate to have Dr. Reding serve as the chair of my dissertation committee. Throughout my research journey, she is willing to share her experiences and guide students toward valuable resources. She creates a respectful and supportive atmosphere, particularly important for international students and those for whom English is not a first language. Her mentorship has greatly enhanced our confidence and sense of belonging within the research team.” — Chi-Shan Tsai, nominator

Student Awards

The Undergraduate Outstanding Student Award recognizes a graduating student who has demonstrated exceptional academic and professional qualities, integrating leadership, evidence-based practice and a commitment to health equity in alignment with the core goals of the nursing program.

Recipient: Sumaya Uthmaan, BSN

“Sumaya’s resilience is one of her defining qualities. Transitioning from homeschooling to a major university presented significant social and academic challenges, including managing social anxiety and feelings of imposter syndrome. Compounding these pressures, she navigated complex family responsibilities while maintaining academic excellence in a demanding nursing program. Despite these obstacles, Sumaya has excelled in both clinical settings and theoretical coursework, earning a strong GPA and several prestigious scholarships.” — Tiffany Liu, Katherine Ward, Margaret Heitkemper, nominators

The Doctor of Nursing Practice Outstanding Student Award is for a student graduating from the DNP program who best exemplifies the program goals: Leadership, Competency, Clinical Decision Making and Contributions to the UW School of Nursing.

Recipient: Addy Adwell, DNP

Addy has her finger on the pulse, an excellent education, and is poised to make considerable impact as a scientist and a practitioner. — Sarah Gimbel, nominator

The Master of Science Outstanding Student Award is given to the MS student who best exemplifies the program goals: Creativity, Scholarship, Potential in the Profession and Contributions to the Community.

Recipient: Denise Galdamez, MS-CIPCT

“She exemplifies the integration of theory into practice, creativity, scholarly excellence, leadership potential, and meaningful contributions to both academic and professional communities.” — Sarah Iribarren, nominator

The Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award celebrates a graduate student who has excelled in the role of teaching assistant, demonstrating exceptional teaching effectiveness, inspiring communication skills and a remarkable ability to engage and connect with both students and faculty.

Recipient: Grey Mitchell, DNP

“Grey is valuable member of the team and has really helped to move the Simulation Center forward, particularly how they have shared their experiences to help us to best meet the needs of the DNP learner.” — Nicola Contreras, nominator

“Throughout their time as a DNP student, Grey has been a transformative presence within the UW SON community and the larger Seattle community. Their goal has always been clear: to advocate for and improve the quality of care for LGBTQIA+ people, particularly transgender and gender-diverse individuals. Grey’s dedication to this cause has been evident in their work and interactions with students and faculty alike.” — Nicola Contreras, nominator

The Dissertation Award in Nursing Science honors a graduate whose research demonstrates outstanding achievement in advancing knowledge that is innovative and impactful in promoting, restoring and maintaining the health of individuals, families or communities.

Recipient: Tao Zheng, PhD

“Through all of his work, Dr. Zheng has consistently demonstrated what our School and University hold as the highest standards of academic achievement but also an equally intensive commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Dr. Zheng has a long track record of teaching students of diverse ethnic backgrounds.” — Fran Lewis, nominator

“Tao is a first-generation college student. His parents who emigrated from China had not completed grade school. He started his nursing education at a Washington state community college. There is strong potential for Tao to impact the care of many older adults with chronic illness and especially those with potential cognitive dysfunction due to their illness. In addition, he holds great promise as an educator/clinician. There is no doubt that he will make a mark on our profession.” — Peg Heitkemper, nominator

The DAISY Student Nurse Award recognizes a graduating student who shows a deep commitment to extraordinary clinical skill and compassionate patient care that will make a meaningful difference in the lives of so many people.

Recipient: Kaylah Gabriella Punio, BSN

“I would like to nominate Kaylah Punio who is currently a Senior Practicum student in the Cancer and Blood Disorders Clinic (CBDC) for this award because of the beautiful way she takes into consideration not only her patient’s physical needs but also the insightful and compassionate way she tailors her care to honor the developmental stage and needs of the child.” — Anne Kalkbrenner, nominator

The Azita Emami Student Leadership in Social Justice Award honors a graduating UW School of Nursing student who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to social justice in the areas of leadership, scholarship and service. The award honors a student who has served as a change agent and made a tangible impact on the university community promoting equity and inclusion.

Recipient: Autumn Dennistoun, DNP

“Dr. Autumn Dennistoun’s outstanding commitment to social justice in leadership, scholarship, and service was demonstrated through her year-long collaboration with the UW Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health (PNASH) Center, focusing on substance use and opioid overdose risk among commercial fishing workers in Washington State—one of the most hazardous occupations in the United States.” — Jenny Tsai, nominator

These individuals were celebrated at Convocation on June 16, 2025.

Feeling to Heal: Mindful Awareness Training Shows Outcomes for Addiction, Pain, Trauma Recovery

Video credit: Duke Clinical Research Institute Communications

In a healthcare system that often separates mind from body, a recent research study from the University of Washington School of Nursing illuminates evidence of what many have known intuitively for thousands of years—that reconnecting the mind-body divide is crucial for those struggling with addiction and chronic pain. More promising still, training practitioners and patients in this life-altering therapy is not only possible in a clinical setting but scalable and complementary to the care that nurses already provide in a complex system where new interventions often face barriers to implementation.

University of Washington School of Nursing researchers have completed a multisite study demonstrating significant benefits of Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT) for individuals with substance use disorders, chronic pain and trauma histories. The research, led by Dr. Cynthia Price, shows how a simple but powerful approach of teaching people to tune into their bodies can have transformative effects on well-being.

“The research is asking whether providing people with more skills to pay attention to how they’re feeling inside is helpful for overall well-being,” explained Dr. Price, the study’s principal investigator. “We’re giving people more capacity for what is called interoceptive awareness—or awareness of internal physical and related emotional sensations through this training by teaching people how to bring mindful attention inside their bodies to know how they’re feeling.”

The multi-year study, which included sites in Seattle, Port Angeles and Bellingham, worked with diverse participants receiving medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) treatment. The research revealed significant improvements in pain management, reduction in PTSD symptoms and enhanced emotional regulation. Notably, 57% of participants reported chronic pain issues, and data showed participants continued using the learned skills nine months after completing the intervention.

“This type of work helps people engage with understanding their own personal emotional relationship to their addiction and recovery needs,” Dr. Price noted. “The MABT approach addresses a gap in services, as somatic awareness is not typically included in psychotherapy, and standard mindfulness approaches don’t teach these specific skills.”

One study participant from the mental health clinic at Harborview shared their experience from the training: “I learned how to turn my awareness inward and to be open to noticing what my body wants to tell and/or show me. I learned not only how to do this, but also the importance of implementing it in my daily life. I learned that I, my body is worthy of my attention.”

The MABT approach is particularly valuable for individuals with trauma and chronic pain histories, as they often develop coping mechanisms that involve disconnection from bodily sensations. “In the long run, this disconnection is problematic for folks,” Price explained.

With more somatic awareness, including more awareness of the links between physical and emotional sensations, people can better engage in symptom management and feel more agency to promote well-being for themselves and in their relations with others.

Cynthia PriceUW School of Nursing

The research has significant implications for healthcare implementation, particularly for nursing professionals. Dr. Price is currently exploring how this approach can be more broadly integrated into clinical care. “In hospital settings, nurses can bill for these kinds of services in a way that they can’t when they’re not [provided by] a nurse,” she explained, highlighting practical pathways for bringing MABT into mainstream healthcare.

The study was part of the National Institutes of Health HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative, which is working to address the opioid epidemic. The NIH HEAL Initiative supports HEAL Connections, which created accessible resources to translate this research into practical tools for clinicians, patients and other stakeholders. The MABT Study Partner Toolkit is available to the public.

Dr. Price emphasized that the mindful awareness and body-oriented therapy training is firmly grounded in neuroscience. “Interoceptive processing is impaired with people experiencing chronic pain and mental health disorders. We know from neuroscience research that sensory processing is important for regulation—it’s how our [nervous] system knows how to regulate.”

With its proven effectiveness across diverse populations and growing recognition of its scientific validity, MABT represents a promising complement to existing treatments for substance use disorders, chronic pain and trauma recovery. It is also a helpful approach for everyone, regardless of health history, to facilitate awareness and an embodied sense of self: “We all can use more skills to attend to our inner experience.”

Learn more

Want to know how you can support this important work? Contact UW School of Nursing Advancement.

Interested in learning more or using mindful body awareness in your practice or personal life?

Research findings

Read Immediate Effects of Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy as an Adjunct to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder.

Training and other resources

For healthcare professionals interested in MABT, explore training programs from the Center for Mindful Body Awareness.

Explore events and classes from the UW Center for Child and Family Well-Being.

Breakthrough in IV Safety Shows Promise

A nurse-informed innovative solution to a decades-old clinical challenge is gaining attention from the NIH. Discover how a collaboration with UW’s Digital Health Innovation Hub could transform patient safety and put nurses at the forefront of healthcare innovation.

The Digital Health Innovation Hub (DHIH) at the University of Washington School of Nursing continues to catalyze impactful partnerships that advance nurse-led innovation. One standout example is a recently submitted NIH Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) application developed through a collaboration between Dr. Oleg Zaslavsky, director of DHIH, and Crimson Medical Solutions, a healthcare startup focused on developing practical tools for nurses and improving patient safety.

The project, centered around Crimson’s IV Manager—a color-coded, modular system designed to reduce IV-line confusion and medication errors—aims to address preventable adverse drug events (ADEs) in acute care settings. These events, which disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, are often caused by misidentification and disorganization of IV lines, a common and longstanding challenge in clinical nursing practice.

Dr. Zaslavsky, who serves as the academic co-principal investigator, described the innovation as a “pragmatic, nurse-informed solution to an everyday safety issue that nurses have silently struggled with for decades.” His role focuses on leading the simulated clinical validation work, which will take place at the UW School of Nursing’s high-fidelity Simulation Center.

The STTR submission received strong enthusiasm from NIH reviewers, who highlighted the project’s “high significance,” the strength of its interdisciplinary team and the quality of the research environment at UW. “We were very encouraged by the reviewer feedback,” said Dr. Zaslavsky. “Their support validated the importance of tackling this long-overlooked challenge in hospital safety. The feedback also gave us a clear path forward as we refine the product and prepare for resubmission in the fall.”

While the reviewers praised many aspects of the proposal, they sought additional detail on the novelty and clinical advantage of the IV Manager compared to existing tools. This will be a key focus in the next application. “The resubmission gives us an opportunity to demonstrate just how distinct and impactful this tool is, especially in the hands of nurses who need intuitive, workflow-compatible solutions,” added Dr. Zaslavsky.

The project not only showcases a promising technology but also exemplifies the kind of translational collaboration DHIH aims to support. “This partnership reflects our core mission—to empower nurse innovators and create pathways for their ideas to reach clinical practice,” Dr. Zaslavsky noted. “Through STTRs, we can structure meaningful academic-industry-community collaborations that bring nursing voices to the forefront of healthcare innovation.”

DHIH encourages faculty and community partners to explore similar STTR opportunities as part of its growing portfolio. The IV Manager project provides a compelling roadmap for how DHIH can serve as an incubator for user-centered, equity-driven solutions that address real-world clinical pain points.

Learn more about the Hub

2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium

Our BSN honors students presented their research at the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium on May 16, 2025.

Date: May 16, 2025
Time: Session 1 (11:20 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.), Session 2 (12:30 – 1:30 p.m.), Session 3 (1:40 – 2:40 p.m.) and Session 5 (4 – 5 p.m.)
Location: Mary Gates Hall, HUB Lyceum and Allen Center

Learn more about the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Student presentations

Session 1: 11:20 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.

Student: Antonia Cai
Mentor: Vitor Oliveira
Title: The influence of physical activity and diet quality on the symptom experience of older adults with HIV

Students: Sarah Crawford and Thy Nguyen
Mentor: Sarah Gimbel
Title: Using Student Input to Expand Engagement in Global Health Nursing through Strategic Outreach, Social Media, and Campus Initiatives

Students: Eriska Fajriyati and Sumaya Uthman
Mentors: Sarah McKiddy and Eeeseung Byun
Title: A Qualitative Study of Menopause Expectation and Experiences Among Older Somali and Indonesian Adults with a Uterus

Student: Jun Heo
Mentor: Anita Souza
Title: Exploring Healthcare and Housing Differences Between Older Veterans and Non-Veterans in Permanent Supportive Housing: Barriers to Healthy Aging

Student: Wenchi Lai
Mentor: Vitor Oliveira
Title: The Effects of Exercise Training on Symptoms Experienced by Older Adults with HIV

Student: Grace Plavocos
Mentor: Anita Souza
Title: Evaluating the effectiveness of Post Graduate Fellowship Programs on Healthcare Workforce Needs in Washington State

Session 2: 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.

Student: Jessica Japra
Mentor: Maya N. Elias
Title: The Roles of Chronotype and Cognitive Function on Feasibility of Cognitive Training for Older Intensive Care Unit Survivors

Session 3: 1:40 – 2:40 p.m.

Students: Rhea D. Diokno and Kajsa Zimmerman
Mentor: Kristen Childress
Title: Enhancing Long Term Care Nursing Recruitment through Emotional Engagement

Students: Zoe Hesselroth and Manatsu Okada
Mentor: Jillian Pintye
Title: Enhancing Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Outcomes Among Kenyan Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) with a Novel Pharmacy-Based PrEP Delivery Platform

Students: Rebeca Semere and Stephanie Yu
Mentor: Donna Berry
Title: Improving Usage of the Electronic Self Assessment and Care Tool in Gynecological Oncology Unit at University of Washington

Session 5: 4 – 5 p.m.

Student: Janna Putnam
Mentor: Omeid Heidari
Title: Curating Diets: A Thematic Analysis of Eating Behaviors in “What I Eat in a Day” TikToks

Empowering Future Nurse Practitioners: A Gift of Mentorship and Support

Clinical preceptors are the backbone of nursing education, providing invaluable mentorship and hands-on learning experiences for students. These dedicated professionals shape the next generation of healthcare providers by offering guidance, expertise and real-world clinical training. Their commitment ensures that our Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students develop the skills and confidence needed to provide exceptional care.

Kathleen Perez with two of her grandchildren — Kathleen Perez and two of her grandchildren

Matt Perez, a clinical preceptor, has played a pivotal role in supporting DNP Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) students. Recognizing the crucial contributions of nurse practitioners—especially in community health—Perez saw an opportunity to make an even greater impact. “Family nurse practitioners provide high-quality care and do a tremendous amount of work, yet they often lack the resources and recognition they deserve,” he shared.

Understanding firsthand the challenges students face, Perez wanted to do more. When he received an inheritance from his late mother, he and his wife, Amy, decided to turn their gratitude for nursing education into action. Together, they established the Kathleen Perez Memorial Family Nurse Practitioner Scholarship fund to support DNP students pursuing careers in community health.

Perez’s decision to give was personal. “My mother was an elementary school teacher who did incredible work, often without the resources or recognition she deserved,” he reflected. “This scholarship aligns with her values of caring for others and is a way to honor her legacy while also supporting students who are dedicated to primary care and serving their communities.”

Through their generous gift, they hope to ease the financial burden for aspiring nurse practitioners pursuing a meaningful career path and highlight the vital role they play in healthcare.

We are grateful for their support and commitment to the School of Nursing. Support the Kathleen Perez Memorial Family Nurse Practitioner Scholarship.

Learn more about the UW Doctor of Nursing Practice program or Husky Nurse Precepting.

— Kristine Wright

Announcing Dr. Pamela Kohler as Chair of Child, Family, Population Health Nursing (CFPHN)

Effective April 1, 2025, Dr. Pamela Kohler, PhD, MPH, BSN, RN (she/her), was appointed chair of the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing (CFPHN) at the University of Washington School of Nursing.

Dr. Kohler’s distinguished career exemplifies dedication to research excellence, global health advocacy and transformative health services interventions in nursing practice. Her leadership has been evident throughout her tenure at the University of Washington, including her role as interim department chair for CFPHN, senior technical adviser for the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) and her joint appointment in the Department of Global Health in the UW Schools of Public Health and Medicine. Dr. Kohler holds a PhD in Nursing and a Master of Public Health from the University of Washington as well as a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University. Her cross-disciplinary expertise has fostered collaboration and innovation across our academic community.

As a globally recognized researcher, Dr. Kohler has established herself as a leading voice in adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Her research focuses on improving healthcare delivery systems and implementing evidence-based practices to enhance outcomes for vulnerable populations. Together with Dr. Sarah Gimbel, she established the UW Center for Global Health Nursing, serving as its inaugural director. In addition to research, her international capacity-building partnerships have strengthened healthcare infrastructure and education across resource-limited settings. Dr. Kohler has received numerous accolades for her contributions to nursing education and global health. Most recently, she was selected for the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care Research Impact Award, which recognizes an outstanding member who has made significant contributions through research and scholarship regarding individuals and communities affected by HIV and the quality of care provided to them.

Dr. Kohler’s leadership extends across research and education, where she has mentored countless students and early-career professionals who have gone on to make significant contributions to nursing and global health. Her teaching philosophy emphasizes critical thinking, cultural humility and evidence-based practice—values that intrinsically align with our school’s mission.

As chair of the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, Dr. Kohler will guide the department and our school toward even greater excellence. Dr. Kohler’s appointment comes at a pivotal time as we continue to expand our impact in nursing education, research and practice. Her leadership will be instrumental in advancing our strategic priorities and fostering an inclusive environment where students, staff and faculty can succeed and innovation thrives.

Scholar Spotlight: Wenchi Lai

Wenchi Lai is a UW School of Nursing BSN student and one of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s 2024–2025 Undergraduate Research Scholars. Her research project is “The effects of exercise training on symptoms experienced by older adults with HIV,” and her faculty mentor is Vitor Oliveira, PhD.

Why did you choose nursing?

I always knew I wanted to go into some health-related field because I enjoy taking care of people. I just didn’t know which one I wanted to go into until the COVID-19 pandemic. When I figured it out, I was a CNA in PACU [post-anesthesia care unit]. I started volunteering there, and getting to see the nurses during that time was kind of crazy. I found that nurses were the front-line workers and the ones really interacting with the patients. Seeing how much compassion and empathy they show for the people they care for, as well as their self-sacrifices in having to be at work regardless of what was happening, really inspired me. And after getting to follow them around more, I realized, oh, this is what I want to do.

What made you realize you wanted to do a research project?

Currently, I’m working in the ICU as a nurse tech, where a lot of patients have complications beyond medical control. Seeing these complex conditions made me realize I wanted to see what exactly we can do as nurses to change what is making them end up in hospitals in the first place. Research helps me learn more about why certain diseases develop the way they do or what habits people have that can contribute to their health outcomes.

Could you briefly describe the project you’re doing for the de Tornyay Center scholarship?

For my research project, I’m working primarily with older adults with HIV, with the goal of helping them lessen some of their symptom severity. Ultimately, we’re trying to see if high-intensity exercise will be beneficial and worth recommending for a healthier lifestyle. The primary symptom I’m looking at is fatigue, as it is one of the most severe aging symptoms the geriatric population may experience.

What made you interested in healthy aging research?

I think I have always worked with older populations. This year I’m also involved in UW’s Long-Term Care Externship program, which allows me to really interact with the elderly and get to know them on a deeper level. Getting to understand what they’re going through on a day-to-day basis really helped me see that I want to work with this population and try to help them as much as I can. I feel like they are a demographic that can get neglected or left behind in research or nursing care in general.

Why is this research that you’re doing important to do?

I personally think it’s very important because there may be other people with HIV who are struggling with some of these symptoms, and then they realize there’s a study with evidence and proof that you should be doing this exercise or why you should be following this routine, especially because high-intensity exercise is an activity that takes a lot of commitment.

If I’m personally searching stuff up, but nobody has research proof that says, “I should be doing this,” I think I would never even initiate it. But if I find out there are studies of people who tried it and it worked for them, I would be more inclined to take their recommendations. This is a big reason why our research study should be conducted and released.

While you’ve been working on this project, has there been anything that surprised you?

While I was shadowing the researchers, something that really surprised me was how involved the participants are in wanting to make a change because they might not know if their results are going to come out positively. However, they’re still trying to work and cooperate with the team every day, as well as following everything we’re expecting of them. I think that’s pretty impressive.

What past experiences have you had working with older adults?

In the PACU, most of the patients I work with are older adults who might need hip replacement, knee replacement or other common surgeries. Especially in the nursing home, I was able to see more specific age-related problems such as dementia and chronic health conditions. One thing I see that I love about aging care is how it includes the whole family. Beyond the individual, they have so many people they influenced throughout their lifespan who want to give back and help their loved ones go through the aging process. In my medical-surgical clinical, I also mainly worked in the geriatric medical-surgical unit. Getting that hands-on experience with the geriatric population and seeing all the different parts of their care made me want to lean toward seeing what aging does to the body and getting more hands-on experience with it.

What about those experiences made you think, “This is where I want to be”?

It was working with them and, honestly, just seeing their challenges being in the hospital. They’ll share their stories about how they’ve been impacted with me. It’s such a big transition from when you’re young and you can move around easily to not being able to move as easily as they once were able to. It’s reasonably frustrating for them because they used to be able to do all these things. Getting to hear about that made me think there must be something we can do as nurses, and even in nursing research, to help make that transition easier as their care team.

Welcome to new center manager, Casey Thomson!

The de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging is pleased to welcome Casey Thomson as our new center manager. Thomson has been serving as the center’s interim manager since Heather Wicklein Sanchez retired, and we’re excited to have Thomson on board in a permanent capacity. She brings years of experience managing operations with the Center for Global Health Nursing and will continue that expertise in both roles.

“I am excited to be a part of the passionate team that supports students and faculty to achieve their professional and personal goals through the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging,” said Thomson. “I grew up in the Seattle area and spent many hours as a child visiting my mother who worked as a nurse in care communities for older adults. It is with this lens that I came to understand that nursing care can encompass more than just tending to the ill and that there are a multitude of ways to improve a person’s health.”

Dawg Tank 2025

On January 14, 2025, the University of Washington School of Nursing hosted its dynamic Dawg Tank event, where three exceptional research teams competed for a $15,000 prize. The event brought together innovation, collaboration and community engagement in a celebration of healthcare advancements.

Grand prize winners

Charles Kwanin and Yvette Rodriguez, both PhD students in the UW School of Nursing, won the grand prize with their transformative project. The initiative captivated the audience by demonstrating how integrating AI and mental health strategies can improve tuberculosis treatment outcomes globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries, where limited access to healthcare, high patient-to-provider ratios and a lack of mental health services hinder effective treatment and support.

The judges asked thoughtful questions, such as how the AI algorithms would be developed to prevent biased responses and account for the diversity of users.

Dawg Tank judges

Dawg Tank 2025 judges seated at a table

The expert panel of judges included:

Dr. Sharon S. Laing, associate professor, UW Tacoma School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership
Dr. Kosuke Niitsu, assistant professor, UW Bothell School of Nursing & Health Studies
Dr. David Reyes, dean and associate professor, UW Tacoma School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership
Chandan Chauhan, MS, co-founder and CEO of Clocktree Telehealth

Attendees enjoyed delicious food and beverages, and the event was energized by its charismatic emcee, Tiernan Madorno, who kept the audience engaged and entertained throughout the evening.

Dawg Tank was a showcase of the UW School of Nursing’s commitment to fostering innovation, advancing healthcare and creating solutions that make a meaningful impact on communities.

Congratulations to our 2024-2025 Healthy Aging Scholars!

We’re thrilled to welcome a new cohort of healthy aging scholars. Explore scholar spotlight interviews with members of the cohort.

DNP research scholarships

Sera Madsen

Germaine Krysan Doctoral Scholar
Topic: Expanding Dementia Awareness through Faith-Based Organizations in Rural or Underserved Washington Communities
Faculty mentor: Kori Dewing

Lydia Chen

Healthy Aging Doctoral Research Scholar
Topic: Using Artificial Intelligence in Improving Nursing Documentation in Skilled Nursing Facilities
Faculty mentor: Jamie Young

Ashley Gougouehi

Healthy Aging Doctoral Research Scholar
Topic: Age-Friendly Health Systems Needs Assessment
Faculty mentor: Jamie Young

Undergraduate research scholarships

Jun Heo

Healthy Aging Undergraduate Research Scholar
Topic: Exploring Healthcare and Housing Differences Between Older Veterans and Non-Veterans in Permanent Supportive Housing: Barriers to Healthy Aging
Faculty mentor: Anita Souza

Madison McKee

Myrene C. McAninch Undergraduate Scholar
Topic: Examining the Impacts of Facilitated Garden Activities for Individuals Living with Dementia and their Caregivers
Faculty mentor: Basia Belza

Eriska Fajriyati

Healthy Aging Undergraduate Research Scholar
Topic: Exploring Perceptions of Aging and Menopause in Somali and Indonesian Older Adults: A Qualitative Study
Faculty mentor: Eeeseung Byun

Jessica Japra

Healthy Aging Undergraduate Research Scholar
Topic: The Roles of Chronotype and Cognitive Function on Feasibility of Cognitive Training for Older Intensive Care Unit Survivors
Faculty mentor: Maya Elias

Antonia Cai

Healthy Aging Undergraduate Research Scholar
Topic: The influence of physical activity and diet quality on the symptom experience of older adults with HIV
Faculty mentor: Vitor Oliveira

Wenchi Lai

Healthy Aging Undergraduate Research Scholar
Topic: The effects of exercise training on symptoms experienced by older adults with HIV
Faculty mentor: Vitor Oliveira

December News and Awards

UW Faculty Research Spotlight: Vaccine Hesitancy in Transplant Survivors

A recent study published in Vaccine by Dr. Mihkai Wickline, in collaboration with Dr. Sarah Iribarren, Drs. Kerryn Reding, Donna Berry and Kenneth Pike, explores vaccine hesitancy among hematopoietic cell transplant survivors. Conducted alongside Fred Hutch’s Long-Term Follow-Up Program, the research sheds light on the unique concerns of this vulnerable population regarding revaccination. Read more about the study and its findings.

Student Spotlight: Global Health Nursing Capstone Featured in The Seattle Times

Global Health Nursing student Ruth Rono recently had her capstone work published as an op-ed in The Seattle Times. Co-authored with Dr. Bianca Frogner, the piece explores the shortage of primary care providers, including nurse practitioners, and potential solutions within the U.S. healthcare system. She was also supported by Dr. Jillian Pintye, who leads the Global Health Nursing certificate program.

Celebrating Dr. Joycelyn Thomas

The UW School of Nursing is proud to announce that Dr. Joycelyn Thomas, DNP-track lead for the Family Nurse Practitioner program, has been selected as the recipient of the 2025 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award.

This distinguished honor recognizes individuals who exemplify Dr. King’s principles of service through a commitment to addressing community needs—particularly for communities of color and low-income populations—and by empowering others to improve the human condition. Dr. Thomas’s extensive scholarship, clinical expertise and community leadership make her a fitting recipient of this award.

Tyler Breier Appointed to Washington Public Health Advisory Board

Tyler Breier, a 2023 PHSL graduate, was appointed to Washington state’s Public Health Advisory Board, succeeding Patty Hayes. Nominated by the Washington State Nurses Association, Tyler will contribute to advancing public health in Washington state. Congratulations, Tyler!

NIH Highlights Dr. Cynthia Price’s Opioid Use Disorder Research

NIH recently highlighted Dr. Cynthia Price’s research in a research spotlight. Her study, a large randomized controlled trial funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the NIH HEAL Initiative, examines a mindfulness-based intervention as an adjunct to medication for opioid use disorder. Read the publication, Immediate Effects of Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy as an Adjunct to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder. Congratulations to Dr. Price and her team!

Dr. Kori Dewing Receives Rheumatology Honors

Dr. Kori Dewing has been honored with the Association of Rheumatology Professionals President’s Award, a remarkable achievement in the field. She has also been recognized as the Washington State Arthritis Foundation’s Jingle Bell Medical Honoree. Congratulations, Dr. Dewing!

Highlights from the Gerontological Society of America Conference

Check out the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s write-up featuring the UW School of Nursing at the 2024 Gerontological Society of America Annual Scientific Meeting. Read about presentations and contributions from the UW School of Nursing community.

New AHA Scientific Statement on Cardiovascular Nursing Stress and Burnout

The American Heart Association (AHA) has published Nursing Wellness in Academic and Clinical Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Led by Nancy Pike and Cynthia M. Dougherty, the statement examines drivers of stress and burnout and strategies to support wellness among nurse clinicians, educators and scientists. The AHA also published a video discussion with Pike and Dougherty about the statement and its proposed interventions.

2024 HIPRC Dr. Frederick P. Rivara Endowment Awarded

The 2024 recipient of the Dr. Frederick P. Rivara Endowment is PhD candidate Premgamon Kuntajak, MS, RN, AGPCNP-BC, for her project titled, “Psychological Resilience among Older Adults following Mild-Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): A Concurrent Explanatory Mixed Methods Study.”

Generosity of the heart: Remembering obstetrics nurse Lynn Yim Lin Shih

Shih family donates $1 million to support UW nurses and students

Lynn Shih holding her newborn granddaughter, Kaia.

If nurses could be cloned, Lynn Yim-Lin Shih would be the ideal choice. Her career as an obstetrics nurse spanned 32 years at the University of Washington Medical Center. She began in 1980 on the Mother Baby Unit as a bedside nurse, providing care to postpartum women and their babies, while also teaching baby care classes to new families. Later, she transitioned to the UW Maternal and Infant Care Clinic at the Montlake campus, serving as a team nurse for the remainder of her distinguished career.

“Lynn was all those aspects you’d want in a nurse. Her goal was to help her patients,” said Sue Huth, an obstetrics nurse who worked with Lynn on the Mother Baby Unit. “She was passionate, kind and nonjudgmental. She was professional yet had a sense of humor. She remained positive and calm, always open to helping others.”

Lynn was the anchor for her family, friends and colleagues. She was always there, creating safe, healing and caring spaces where you could find comfort and support. She was the kind of person everyone stopped to talk to in the halls—someone who would pause for 20 minutes to have a genuine conversation about how you were really doing. Patients returning to the clinic for multiple pregnancies often asked for her by name.

Lynn was “the glue that kept everyone together,” said Theresa Ismach, one of the team nurses who worked with her at the Maternal and Infant Care Clinic for 23 years. “She was warm, generous and caring. There was nobody who didn’t like her.”

At the age of eight, Lynn immigrated to Seattle from Hong Kong with her family. As the eldest daughter, she spent her childhood helping her younger siblings and parents navigate life in the United States.

When deciding on her career path, Lynn knew she wanted to become a nurse. As a first-generation college student, she navigated the application process on her own. Unaware of scholarships or other types of financial aid, she worked diligently for four years to attend nursing school at the University of Washington, paying tuition and purchasing textbooks with the wages she earned. Had she grown up in Hong Kong, she likely would not have had the opportunity to pursue higher education and a career in nursing. Lynn was always deeply grateful for the opportunities she found in the United States.

At the age of 24, Lynn met her husband, Jerry Shih. They married and started a family, raising their daughter, Megan, and son Trevor. She continued her nursing career, working weekends and staying home during the week to care for her two young children.

Lynn Shih with her baby son — Lynn poses with her baby son during a photo shoot for a hospital brochure.

Lynn cared for her patients like she did for her own family. Her nurturing and healing personality helped countless tiny, hours-old patients, whom she gently bathed and diapered as she taught parents about how to care for their new babies.

She expertly tended to mothers through their multiple pregnancies and postpartum recoveries, sharing in their struggles, losses and triumphs.

One of Lynn’s patients, whose first pregnancy resulted in a term stillbirth, went on to have a second pregnancy and successful term live birth under her care. Ismach recalled a picture of them with huge smiles shortly after the birth.

“She was always gracious and pleasant,” said Ismach. “The kind of person who said, ‘Let me help you, let me figure out what to do.’”

Lynn’s kind nature made it easy to be her colleague and friend. “Lynn had so many friends,” said Dr. Edith Cheng, Lynn’s colleague and attending physician at the UW Maternal and Infant Care Clinic. “She was so easy to be open with, and she broke down hierarchical barriers.”

They swapped stories about their growing kids and supported each other when family duties overtook work. Sometimes they even watched each other’s kids at the clinic when childcare fell through.

Lynn’s colleagues shared that she was highly organized and methodical. In their shared office space, she was always the one with the spotless desk.

“That’s how she was,” smiled Ismach. “She really gave me a strong foundation in being organized, how to manage the caseload and keep track of knowledge.”

In 2011, Lynn started to feel back pain that continued for a few weeks. An X-ray revealed a suspicious shadow on her lungs, and after further testing, she was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, life changed, and she became the patient, relying on her family, nurses and doctors to help her navigate a new reality. Lynn’s colleagues at the clinic rallied, donating over 1,000 hours of paid time off to her so that she could keep her job and medical benefits while seeking cancer treatment.

Lynn shares her journey and offers advice at the 2013 HOPE Summit for the LUNGevity Foundation.

Lynn beat all statistics for stage IV lung cancer, fighting bravely for eight years and enduring many medical treatments and interventions before she sadly passed away in 2019.

“She lived by the philosophy of ‘generosity of the heart,’” said Jerry. Lynn had the kindest heart, always putting her friends and family first. She remains the biggest role model for her children on the importance of thinking about and helping others.

Lynn Shih with her husband and children — Lynn with her husband and children.

To honor Lynn, the Shih family decided to invest in people like Lynn did with her patients. Jerry generously committed $1 million to the University of Washington, and together, with his son and daughter, they decided to support two endowed funds, the Lynn Shih Endowed Professional Development Fund for Nurses at the UW Medical Center and the Lynn Shih Endowed Emergency Fund for Nursing Students.

A portion of the gift will also support the UW Medical Center, which will bolster capital funding for the coming renovation and expansion of the Maternal and Infant Care Clinic. In recognition of this gift and the Shih family’s generosity, the Maternal and Infant Care Clinic Lobby will be named the Lynn Shih Maternal and Infant Care Clinic Lobby.

For the Shih family, an emergency fund for nursing students would be a meaningful way to honor Lynn’s perseverance during her early years of education and career as a nurse.

“It’s for people who yearn to be nurses, who will do anything to prove themselves, but find themselves in an unforeseen situation where they don’t have the financial means to succeed despite all their incredible effort,” said Jerry. “For us, the best way to honor Lynn is to help people succeed just like her, to go on and make just as big of an impact, and then give back in return.”

The two endowed funds for nurses and students became available in 2024. UW School of Nursing (SoN) students who are currently experiencing unexpected financial hardship may be eligible for emergency financial aid from UW and/or SoN. They can visit the SoN emergency funding webpage for more information.

UW Medical Center Montlake sign — The UW Medical Center where Lynn worked for 32 years.

The professional development fund for nurses at the UW Medical Center will support continuing nursing education opportunities for OB nurses like Lynn.

During Lynn’s career, she and her colleagues sometimes used personal resources to advance their careers. “Lynn always wished nurses had more support,” said Jerry. The professional development fund will help nurses feel valued and supported by the UW institution.

“The Maternal Infant Care Center nurses at UWMC are touched by the generosity of the Shih family,” said Cindy Sayre, chief nursing officer at UW Medical Center, double alumna of the SoN and honorary assistant dean of clinical practice at the SoN. “We remember Lynn fondly and will ensure that this gift is used to celebrate her legacy as a nurse. UWMC honors and supports every nurse to achieve their career goals through professional development, and this donation will be greatly appreciated by the OB nurses.”

The lobby at the Maternal and Infant Care Clinic will become UW’s first space named after a nurse. It will also serve as a special place for the Shih family, including Jerry and Lynn’s children and grandchildren, colleagues and friends, to return to and remember her.

Her generosity of the heart will now continue in perpetuity through supporting current and future UW nurses, who are the backbone of the University’s nursing workforce. They deserve as much care and support as they give to their patients. Let’s apply our hearts to them. Impact lives like Lynn.

— Jennifer Hunt

October/November News Awards

Drs. Kyla Woodward and Mayumi Willgerodt recognized for practice excellence

Dr. Kyla Woodward (PhD ’22, Acting Assistant Professor, Family Medicine, UW School of Medicine) and Dr. Mayumi Willgerodt, professor in Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, received the 2024 Nursing Outlook Author Award for Excellence in Practice.

Their article, “A Systematic Review of Registered Nurse Turnover and Retention in the United States,” provides insights into nursing workforce dynamics, including factors associated with registered nurse turnover and retention.

Honors Program highlight

Carilyn Brandt, an English major and Interdisciplinary Honors student, immediately applied for the summer program “Biobehavioral Health Lopez Island: Reconnecting Food Roots, Community and Well Being,” led by Kerry Reding from the UW School of Nursing. The program was highlighted by UW Honors as an opportunity for students to earn ad hoc Honors credit.

Premgamon Kuntajak receives Dr. Frederick P. Rivara Endowment

Premgamon Kuntajak, MS, RN, AGPCNP-BC, a PhD in Nursing Science candidate, received the 2024 Dr. Frederick P. Rivara Endowment from the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center.

The award supports her project, “Psychological Resilience among Older Adults following Mild-Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): A Concurrent Explanatory Mixed Methods Study.”

2023–2024 Clinical Preceptors of the Year and 2024 Nurses of Influence

We’re proud to recognize the 2023–2024 Clinical Preceptors of the Year and 2024 Nurses of Influence recipients.

Clinical preceptors are highly committed to academic programs and excel in both clinical practice and community service. They play an essential role in providing students with valuable hands-on learning experiences in real-world healthcare settings. DNP students, depending on their track and stage, spend up to three days per week over four quarters in clinical placements, learning alongside these skilled mentors. We’re thrilled to recognize these outstanding preceptors and their dedication to educating our next generation of advanced practice registered nurses and advanced systems and population health experts.

Read more about the recipients, including the clinical preceptors’ advice to nursing students.

Research spotlight: Dr. Cynthia Price’s study on mindfulness and opioid use disorder

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health featured Dr. Cynthia Price’s research in a research spotlight on Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy (MABT) as an adjunct to medication for opioid use disorder.

The large randomized controlled trial found that adding MABT did not significantly change substance use among participants who were already stabilized on medication for opioid use disorder, but it was associated with improvements in PTSD symptoms, interoceptive awareness, pain severity, pain interference and physical symptoms. The research was funded in part by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health through the NIH HEAL Initiative.

Read the full publication, “Immediate Effects of Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy as an Adjunct to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder,” published in Mindfulness.

Dr. Kori Dewing receives national and state recognition

Kori Dewing with rheumatology colleagues and Basia Belza — Kori Dewing, left, with two rheumatologists from the University of Freiburg and UW School of Nursing Professor Basia Belza

Dr. Kori Dewing, a faculty member in Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics, received the 2024 Association of Rheumatology Professionals President’s Award. The award recognizes outstanding service that advances the goals, standards and ideals of the Association of Rheumatology Professionals.

Dewing was also named a Washington state Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell Medical Honoree, recognizing her dedication to advancing arthritis care and supporting the community.

Highlights from UW School of Nursing at GSA

The de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging was proud to see the impressive showing from the UW School of Nursing at this year’s Gerontological Society of America 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting. School of Nursing students, faculty, alumni and collaborators presented innovative work ranging from understanding unhoused older adults to technology, exercise and more at the event.

We look forward to seeing all the fruitful collaborations, research and connections that may come out of this exciting event. Read a few highlights from UW School of Nursing presentations at the conference below. Click on each title to see photos and short descriptions of highlighted presentations.

Explore UW Nursing research at GSA

Since the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging opened its doors over 25 years ago, the center has funded over 165 scholars, giving out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student funding, said Yanjing Liang in a GSA poster presentation. Liang summarized the results of a survey of de Tornyay Center scholars in her poster, showcasing former scholars’ excellence in gerontological nursing research, practice and leadership, helped in part by their time with the center.

The long-term care field is experiencing staffing shortages across the U.S. Increasing the number of professionals in that industry is critical to caring for people with dementia. Associate Teaching Professor Kristen Childress presented a poster on nursing students’ reasons for not going into long-term care. Low wages and the lack of assistance with student loans were common reasons. Multiple students also felt that growing their careers and skills in the long-term care field would lead to administrative and supervisory work, when instead many wanted to grow their direct patient care skills and responsibilities, such as with a DNP. Students were also concerned about the working environment and mentioned the ratios of nurses to residents at long-term care facilities. The next step for Childress’ research is to study why people currently in the long-term care field choose this field.

PhD student and de Tornyay Center illustrator Lalipat Phianhasin presented on social determinants of health in stroke recovery. Phianhasin and colleagues looked at factors — such as access to health care, socioeconomic status, race and education — to see how these factors, also known as social determinants of health, influence stroke recovery. Her work has turned up a number of connections. For example, being married helps with a number of aspects of recovery, such as having an easier time engaging with social activities.

Clinical Professor Anita Souza opened a panel on homeless older adults. She pointed to the fact that the proportion of unhoused older adults is growing and that people who are unhoused tend to experience “accelerated aging.”

Souza shared her recent study, using a statistical model to look at a homeless older adult population and find the statistical groups that exist within the homeless older adult population. The work pointed to key differences in subgroups of the population, such as if they have health concerns and/or substance use. In discussion, Associate Professor Jenny Tsai pointed out how the study demonstrates that this population is not a monolith. Different people in this population have different needs beyond just housing.

UW DNP alumna Randee Robinson followed Souza and spoke about her project investigating barriers to accessing mental health care for residents at supportive housing. Robinson found many factors, like caseworker turnover, stigma and more, got in the way of mental health care. UW Medicine Clinical Assistant Professor Russel Berg shared cases from working at a hotel shelter with a medical clinic and psychiatric services, highlighting the many challenges of supporting older adults at the shelter.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s becoming easier and more common to access health information online. PhD student and UW School of Nursing pre-doctoral scholar Wenting Peng investigated what older adults’ technology use currently looks like. Most older adults in the study data had a technology device, and a majority used technology every day. Fewer, but still more than half, use technology for health reasons. There were also major differences between older adults who did and didn’t use technology, both in general and for health purposes, with factors like gender, health and income all affecting how likely someone is to use digital health and commonplace technology.

School of Nursing PhD student Zih-Ling Wang with fellow PhD student and co-author Jenna McHale presented on the experiences and challenges of eating with dementia. Examining the literature, they broke down eating experiences into environmental, interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, as well as external and internal outcomes, such as nutrition and mental health. In another poster, the two students demonstrated how these ideas can be shown as a diagram of how dependent we are on others across the lifespan. We gain capabilities and independence as we grow into adulthood and tend to lose some of that independence toward the end of life. As the diagram they created shows, dementia can lengthen the amount of time an older adult has less independence and make them lose independence earlier.

PhD student and former de Tornyay Center pre-doctoral scholar Kuan-Ching Wu presented her investigation of the current research on what interventions work for preventing urinary tract infections in people with dementia. The only three studies she found all focused on digital interventions, using technology like AI and sensors. The lack of work in this field points to the need for more robust support for people with dementia and their care partners to prevent UTIs. Interested in learning more about urinary tract infections in people with dementia? Read more in the de Tornyay Center’s Northwest Primetime article on UTIs and dementia, featuring Wu and her work.

Four PhD students presented deep dives into an array of research questions. The all-UW School of Nursing GSA session focused on something known as a ‘scoping review,’ which is essentially a systematic review to get the big picture of the current research on a subject.

Mesh Otewa spoke about his scoping review on improving health equity in older adults, which is especially important as health disparities are increasing for older adults across a number of conditions. Otewa and colleagues found that studies on this topic tended to focus on technology (such as telehealth), improving access to health insurance (such as Medicaid) and making the healthcare system easier for older adults to navigate. One of the main takeaways from the scoping review was the importance of a practical approach to integrating new approaches into existing systems.

Jenna McHale presented a scoping review of eating behaviors and dementia, which was led by fellow PhD student Zih-Ling Wang. One of the key findings she presented was that “creating supportive dining environments” tended to be helpful for getting people with dementia to eat and drink more. McHale and Wang also found that there was a notable gap — not a lot of research focused on improving individuals’ ability to eat.

de Tornyay Center pre-doctoral scholar Priscilla Carmiol-Rodriguez spoke about social frailty. As opposed to physical frailty, social frailty describes a lack of resources for meeting one’s social needs. While social frailty is common for older adults, it’s not studied much. Carmiol-Rodriguez’s study of the literature highlighted risk factors such as hearing loss, physical frailty and other conditions. Social frailty, in turn, is connected with increased risk of conditions like poor mental health or cognitive impairment, as well as disability and quality of life. However, research shows that interventions can help. Things such as exercise and improving older adults’ skill with technology have all been found helpful for socially frail older adults.

PhD student and former center pre-doctoral scholar Sarah McKiddy shared two scoping reviews in the panel discussion. Her first talk emphasized the diversity of current research on music interventions for people with dementia. Many focused on tailoring music to participants and their cultures. Some incorporated group elements and some included opportunities for community and socialization. Studies also differed on whether they had people participate in music, such as singing or playing an instrument, or just listening to it. Overall, she pointed to the need for standardized terms across the research to help the field distinguish between different types of treatments.

McKiddy’s second scoping review highlighted current research on group physical activity interventions for people with dementia and their care partners. These interventions can have many benefits, including both physical and mental health and general quality of life. When reviewing the research in her scoping review, McKiddy found that these benefits were reinforced across programs, although many people with dementia and their care partners often struggled with following exercise recommendations. More research could illuminate how to best tailor interventions to this population and their challenges.

Encouraging people with dementia to think back on the past, or reminiscence, “has shown promising potential in dementia,” says PhD student Xianglan Jin in the poster she presented at GSA. However, studies on reminiscing have mostly been in clinical and group settings, which makes it harder to spread widely. That’s why Jin and her colleagues set out to work with the care partners of people with dementia, to help teach them to deliver intentional reminiscence sessions with their loved ones, using photos, drawings and chatting about life. Care partners shared that reminiscing was a wonderful way for their loved one to use their mind, and care partners enjoyed seeing just how much the person with dementia still remembered.

Understandably, there’s a lot of focus in gerontology on how older adults age well in their later years. But there’s been less emphasis on what we can all do earlier in life to prepare for older adulthood. PhD student and center pre-doctoral scholar Yanjing Liang presented her research investigating what makes up “readiness for aging.” Looking across 15 studies, she identified many factors, from social support to future plans, preparing financially and so much more. This research provides a foundation for future study into how we can all best prepare for later life.

PhD student Suah Park investigated what makes up good sleep quality in older adults by reviewing the research papers on the topic. ‘Sleep quality’ includes a lot of different aspects, including how someone feels about their sleep, as well as more objective measurements, such as how long someone is asleep. The next steps for the research could include investigating the relationship between causes of good and poor sleep quality, the effects of sleep quality, as well as cases when subjective and objective measures of sleep quality are different, says Park.

Paige Denison, long-time collaborator with the UW School of Nursing and the director of Health, Wellness & Project Enhance at Sound Generations, introduced a panel on the EnhanceFitness program, which was established about 30 years ago in the Seattle area in collaboration with the University of Washington. Since then the program has been backed by an impressive array of evidence, continued through staffing changes at many organizations involved with the program and has spread across the country to over 100 sites.

Fellow presenter and UW Medicine Research Professor Kushang Patel demonstrated that the program is still effective when delivered remotely, based on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on that, University of Vermont Associate Professor Gell demonstrated the program worked well for cancer survivors going to the program virtually and may have even helped attendance. UW Medicine Research Consultant Elise Hoffman highlighted barriers to getting participants referred to the program by their doctor, from the referral process being too complex to referrals dropping off over time. So her team developed an easy referral system for EnhanceFitness, where nurses can refer patients simply by selecting a class and hitting a button that says ‘refer.’

Dr. Basia Belza of the de Tornyay Center shared a recent pilot study in the Seattle area by UW School of Nursing researchers looking at how feasible EnhanceFitness was for people with dementia and their care partners. The study aimed to understand how best to adjust the programming to the population. There were many barriers to attendance, with six out of eight of the pairs of participants dropping out of the study. Reasons ranged from unrelated health problems to being too tired and more. Overall, the study points to areas for improvement to help make the program accessible to this population.

Priscilla Carmiol-Rodriguez presented data investigating sleep in ICU survivors, once they were discharged from the ICU into less intensive hospital environments. She found that across the board participants’ sleep was negatively impacted. Compared to healthy adults they spent less time in each of the different stages of sleep – from light sleep, deep sleep and REM (the stage when we dream). The reason? They were sleeping much less throughout the night. The hospital environment, as well as their health, both might be affecting sleep, said Carmiol-Rodriguez. One potential solution could be narrowing the window when hospital staff will wake a patient up. Interestingly, Carmiol-Rodriguez shared that after a hospital stay, some research shows people may continue to sleep poorly after an ICU stay for as long as a year.

The CDC has a robust set of recommendations to help prevent falls for older adults. Their STEADI program has information for everyone from hospitals to pharmacists, Executive Dean Hilaire Thompson shared when presenting a poster on an adaptation of the program. However, nothing similar exists for long-term care. So Thompson and colleagues set out to adapt STEADI for the long-term care setting. They spoke to staff at facilities and to experts to get an idea of what might be feasible and best practice. As a result of her team’s efforts, the STEADI-LTC care program is currently being tested at facilities around Western Washington. The researchers are keeping an eye on many factors, from whether the program reduces falls to what aspects of the program long-term care facilities do and don’t implement.

Scholar Spotlight: Wenting Peng

Photo of Wenting Peng by Alabastro Photography.

Wenting Peng is a first-year PhD in Nursing Science student and one of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s predoctoral scholars. She is also one of the 2024–2025 UW Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences Blalock Fellows. Her mentor from her graduate program is former de Tornyay Center scholar Minhui Liu, PhD, RN.

Peng’s research areas of interest include aging-related health concerns. Peng also recently presented several poster and podium presentations on healthy aging topics at the Gerontological Society of America’s Annual Scientific Meeting, a conference that draws over 3,700 attendees from various disciplines in aging.

What are your research areas of interest?

My research can be divided into two parts. The first is using publicly available data sets to examine the risk factors or protective factors for physical function or cognitive function in older adults. The second part is implementation science. I am very interested in developing and implementing evidence-based interventions, especially innovative interventions for older adults to improve their well-being.

What made you interested in studying those two topics?

For data science, it’s that I can get a sense of achievement during the process. Finding a specific research question is very interesting, and trying your best to use this data to answer that is very inspiring, especially when the results have implications for nursing science and nursing practice.

For implementation science, it’s because I can’t only focus on the data science, because it’s very abstract for the older adults. I want to make it more practical for them. I want to have my own contributions or develop something truly effective for them.

Are there particular types of interventions you’re interested in?

Previously, I was more interested in exercise-based interventions, but after I started my doctoral program at UW, many professors are doing different technology-based interventions, which are appealing to me. These interventions also have shown their effectiveness in improving well-being in the targeted population. I am interested in technology-based interventions, and in the future, I may want to combine these two components and explore what can be effective for older adults.

Why are you interested in technology and older adults? Why do you think this area is important?

Older adults face issues with technology inequality. For example, when I went into the hospital, the hospital required the older adults to register online before they got direct care in the hospital. But many of the older adults don’t know how to do that. It is impossible and unfair to stop the hospital or all care services from using technology. What I want to do is try to let the older adults adapt themselves into this digital health world and use digital technology to help them live better. This is the reason I want to make a switch to the technology-related area.

When did you first start doing research?

In my bachelor’s studies, I had the opportunity to do research.

What made you want to do research during your undergraduate?

That research I did in my bachelor’s program was related to aging. And that made me interested in doing aging research in my graduate program.

My interest in studying aging is related to my grandparents. I am a ‘left-behind child’ because my parents needed to work in a different city when I was a child. So my grandparents raised me. At that time, we lived in a rural area, and the health services were not well developed. My grandpa had severe heart disease, but he decided not to take any action to delay its progress. There were many older adults like my grandpa in my village. This kind of health struggle is very common among older adults living in a rural area, so I wanted to do something for them in the future. When I got into the bachelor’s of nursing program, I found that there was an opportunity for the bachelor’s students to do some research on a topic related to aging. At that time, I was shadowing as a nursing student, and I found that many clinical healthcare providers were talking about a new term – Internet plus nursing and wanted to apply it to older patients. However, I talked to some older patients and found they never heard of it before. Thus, I had an idea to explore the recognition and acceptability of the Internet plus nursing in older adults. After that, I found some college students also interested in that and a professor to guide us. So, I tried and succeeded in getting funded. That’s why I wanted to do that.

Scholar Spotlight: Jessica Welsch

Jessica Welsch served as a person-centered care coach on a project in Washington state spearheaded by the Alzheimer’s Association. The project aimed to help long-term care facilities improve quality care for people living with Alzheimer’s and dementia by implementing the Alzheimer’s Association’s Dementia Care Practice Recommendations. Welsch was the first author on an award-winning abstract describing the program, presented at the Western Institute of Nursing’s April 2024 conference. Read more about the project in the recent Northwest PrimeTime article.

How did you get involved with this project?

This was an opportunity that came up through the Alzheimer’s Association. They were doing an innovative model to try to increase person-centered care in these long-term care facilities. They proposed a plan with the state of Washington, where they would take some of the money that the state has committed to reinvest in quality care and nursing homes and fund this project, which was to improve person-centered care for people living with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

What interested you about getting involved in this project in particular?

I have a personal interest, like many people who work in dementia care. My dad had dementia and we struggled to find quality care and supports, and this project seemed like a great opportunity to increase access to those resources for other families like ours. In this project I got to support professional care providers in nursing homes who would interact directly both with families and people living with dementia, so it felt very impactful.

How did this program aim to change things in long-term care facilities?

This program was based on the quality improvement program from the federal government. The idea was that it improves person-centered care, which is the gold standard of care in any kind of care community, but particularly for people living with dementia.

We introduced change through a strength-based coaching model. They called it transformational change, which means that the change should transcend any one participant in the program, or any one resident, or any one family, or any one provider, because the action plans that we completed become embedded in the culture of the care community.

The coaching program used the Dementia Care Practice Recommendations to structure what those changes should be in the context of dementia or Alzheimer’s. The recommendations provide specific, evidence-based actions that professional care providers can use, so it’s easier to know how to increase quality care.

What does person-centric care look like for people with dementia?

It’s really similar to person-centric care anywhere, which focuses on the person in front of you, what their individual needs and goals are and knowing them as a person. Person-centered care focuses on building and maintaining a relationship with the person as opposed to just focusing on the care.

You talked about culture change being the goal. How did you all try to implement culture change?

We focused on practices and policies that would become part of the regular standard operating procedures, and so would be something that’d be incorporated every day going forward.

One of the actions that was super popular to do was a Get-to-Know-Me form for new residents. This is so important to find out who’s coming in and what are they into. What do they like to talk about? What do they hate to talk about? How can staff connect with them?

When you implement that as part of your intake process that just becomes a part of the culture. People get excited to know who’s coming in. It changes the way people see who’s coming in, if they have some more personal details or might see points of connection.

Why is this work important to do?

This particular work was important because it’s so validating for the staff, but also for the residents and even their families. The impacts are wide-ranging, and they can be tailored to specific areas for each community.

The other thing that’s neat and that provides an impact for this program is that it is a huge body of research-backed knowledge just for people living with Alzheimer’s or dementia. It is hard for care communities to get specific instruction and specific guidelines that are that tailored to people living with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

I heard you also started a podcast about dementia?

Yes, I did start a podcast. My family relied a lot on podcasts when my dad had dementia, and I thought it’d be fun to do one.

How long has it been running?

It’s been running for a little over a year. It’s called Everyday Dementia Guide. It’s posted about weekly. It’s short individual episodes on different topics for people who are doing the everyday routine with dementia, like living at home and just making their way the best they can.

What’s your goal or hope with the podcast?

My goal is just to provide resources and information to the family caregivers who are looking for this information. I know that when I was in the journey it was hard to find a specific answer to an everyday challenge. Your doctor doesn’t know, the nurses don’t know, your psychologist doesn’t know, the people who know are others who have also faced those everyday challenges at home. A lot of people have trouble getting to a support group, which would be a great place to have that information, either because they’re in a rural area, or there’s sometimes a stigma with attending a support group, or even being able to leave their loved one alone to attend the group. So, this is a way to get information and tips and communication ideas to people where they’re at.

Is there anything else that you would like to share?

One of the things I hear a lot in this area is that it’s so hard to know where people are at. A lot of people don’t get diagnosed with dementia, even if they have it, even if everyone thinks they have it that knows them, they’ll never get diagnosed, and they’ll never get tested. The diagnosis process is kind of long and doesn’t always get completed. I encourage people to try to just look at what’s in front of them and take things on a day-to-day basis. People say that if you know one person with dementia, you know one person with dementia. It’s so individual.

The other thing I really like to share is that if this is something that you’re living with or supporting, it’s super important to get a support team in place. So reach out to the Alzheimer’s Association or somebody who knows about Alzheimer’s to start building that team so that you can stay in it for the long run and avoid burnout.

UW School of Nursing at GSA 2024

The de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging highlighted a number of presentations by UW School of Nursing faculty and students at the Gerontological Society of America 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting in Seattle. View the GSA 2024 schedule for full conference details.

This roadmap was last updated November 13, 2024.

Wednesday, November 13

12 – 1:30 p.m.

Session presenters include Jenny Hsin-Chun Tsai and Randee Robinson.

6 – 7:15 p.m.

Poster presentation by Wenting Peng.

Poster presentation by Lalipat Phianhasin.

Thursday, November 14

8 – 9:30 a.m.

Session presenters include Basia Belza, Meshack W. Otewa, Priscilla Carmiol-Rodriguez, Zih-Ling Wang and Sarah McKiddy.

Session presenters include Weichao Yuwen, Maggie Ramirez, Clara Berridge, Jingyi Li, Yanjing Liang and Genevieve C. Aguilar.

Zih-Ling Wang is the first author; presented by Jenna McHale.

Session presenters include Zih-Ling Wang.

2 – 3:15 p.m.

Session presenters include Kristen Childress.

4:30 – 6 p.m.

Session presenters include Wenting Peng.

Session presenters include Basia Belza.

Friday, November 15

2 – 3:15 p.m.

Poster presentation by Yanjing Liang and Jenna McHale.

Poster presentation by Zih-Ling Wang and Jenna McHale.

Poster presentation by Kuan-Ching Wu.

Poster presentation by Xianglan Jin.

Saturday, November 16

8 – 9:30 a.m.

Poster presentation by Yanjing Liang.

12 – 1:30 p.m.

Session presenters include Hilaire Thompson.

Session presenters include Sarah McKiddy.

2 – 3:15 p.m.

Poster presentation by Yanjing Liang.

Poster presentation by Hilaire Thompson.

Poster presentation by Premgamon Kuntajak.

Poster presentation by Suah Park.

Poster presentation by Priscilla Carmiol-Rodriguez.

2023-2024 Clinical Preceptors of the Year and 2024 Nurses of Influence Recipients

We’re proud to recognize the 2023–2024 Clinical Preceptors of the Year and 2024 Nurses of Influence recipients.

2023–2024 Clinical Preceptors of the Year

Chelsea Miller, DNP, ARNP, ACNPC-AG

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

Once I returned to Washington, I was eager to give back to my alma mater as I was now in a unique position to provide the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner students with a critical care rotation where they could manage a wide range of disease processes and perform all of the procedures they received training for. I was eager to provide mentorship and help develop the critical thinking skills needed to transition from the bedside RN to ARNP provider role.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

Enter every clinical experience prepared with a genuine curiosity and eagerness to learn. This will shine through and your preceptors and their colleagues will go above and beyond to teach and provide learning opportunities. Treat every clinical rotation like a job interview!

Jennifer Ugale Mercado, NP-C

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I was inspired by a colleague who started precepting students. I was reminded, by having students in our clinic, of the energy that students bring, an energy and excitement for learning that I remember having as a student. Students have a way of rekindling that spirit that brought us to the profession in the first place. I decided to become a preceptor because I felt inspired to put myself in a position to harness and nurture that energy.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

I hope that you continue to find joy in learning and to seek out the “preceptors” all around you as you graduate and start your own practice. I can’t think of a day of work that I didn’t need to look something up, learn something new/put something new into practice or work through a question/problem with a colleague. My other hope is that you find work-life harmony and hold onto the things that fill your mental, emotional and physical buckets because it is really true that we take better care of people when we take care of ourselves.

John Okrent, MD

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I am energized by precepting and teaching. The residents and students keep me on my toes and inspire me to keep learning. I want to be the best provider I can be so that I can set the best possible example. It makes the work doubly rewarding. I hope to show students that the work we do in medicine is social justice work and it is our privilege to do it.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

Remember that this is a profession of service and partnership and that all of our successes here will be in the spirit of service and partnership. We are here in service to our patients and in partnership with them.

Noelle Brodeur, CNM

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I love learning about people’s paths to midwifery and supporting them along their journey. I believe being a preceptor helps keep my clinical skills up to date and I learn just as much from my students as they learn from me.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

First, none of us will always have all of the answers; use this time as a student to become comfortable asking for help. Second, find a self-care routine that works for you and practice it often.

Team 8 – APP Inpatient Team

Teneisha Hunt, DNP, ARNP, CPNP-AC/PC

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I feel it is important for all of us to do our part in teaching and mentoring the future generation of nurses and advanced practice nurses.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

You can do it! Continue to be engaged, ask questions, find learning opportunities and you will ultimately reach your goals!

Amber Mashuta, ARNP

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I was fortunate to have had incredible mentors during my own training. Their guidance and support inspired me to give back and become a preceptor myself.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

Never stop asking questions. Curiosity is the key to learning and growing in your nursing career.

Rebecca Stevenson, PA-C

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I have always enjoyed teaching and am incredibly grateful for the wonderful preceptors who have helped shape my clinical career. Paying that forward is very rewarding.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

Continue to be engaged and curious. Every new clinical exposure is an opportunity for growth.

Samantha Finley, ARNP

Missy Lein, MSN, ARNP-CS, PCNS-BC

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I have loved nursing since my very first clinical rotation! It’s an honor to share something you love so much with others and help them move forward with their own goals and aspirations.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

Surround yourself with an encouraging community (of nurses and non-nurses) and stay curious. There is always more to learn and your community will help support and guide you through the ups and downs.

Tera Johnson, ARNP

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

To help teach and inspire the future of pediatric healthcare providers.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

The road to being a practitioner is paved with much stress, anxiety and little sleep. But the reward is getting to care for the neonates, infants, children and adolescents of our community who are in desperate need of quality and compassionate healthcare. It is an honor.

Susan Lee, EdD, MEd, EMPA

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

What inspired me to become a clinical preceptor is the honor and privilege of being part of an esteemed institution like the University of Washington (UW). Working closely with students allows me to play a key role in bridging the gap between academia and the underserved communities I have committed my work to. The students’ enthusiasm, drive and desire to learn inspire me every day. They remind me of the importance of fostering a sense of connection between the academic environment and the real-world challenges faced by vulnerable populations.

Watching students grow, not only in their clinical skills but also personally and in their ability to make a difference in these communities, fuels my passion for teaching. Their dedication and willingness to contribute positively to society align with my own values, reinforcing the importance of developing well-rounded, compassionate healthcare professionals who are committed to serving others.

Additionally, my decision to become a clinical preceptor was heavily influenced by the guidance and mentorship I received from my own professors, particularly Dr. Marla Salmon, Dr. Jenny Tsai and Dr. Elaine Walsh. Their leadership, mentorship and sponsorship left a profound impact on me. They encouraged me to think critically, pushed me to become a better person and provided invaluable support along the way. Now, I feel compelled to pay that forward by offering the same guidance, mentorship and coaching to the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Being a clinical preceptor allows me to give back to both the institution that shaped me and the communities I care deeply about. It’s about creating a positive ripple effect – supporting students in their growth while ensuring they have the tools to contribute meaningfully to society and the health of underserved populations.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

The advice I would give to nursing students is to hold onto the enthusiasm, drive and compassion that brought them into the field. These traits are what make great nurses stand out and allow them to deeply connect with patients. Always nurture your empathy, as it will guide you through the toughest times, helping you to understand and care for others with genuine heart. Remember to reflect on your own experiences – they will help you relate better to others and provide more compassionate care. Be proud of your achievements but stay humble, because nursing is a journey of continuous learning.

Be lifelong learners. The healthcare field is always changing, so stay curious and seek knowledge from every corner, including your patients and colleagues. Engage with people who offer different perspectives and use those insights to grow. Never be afraid to ask questions or challenge norms – it’s through courage that true growth happens.

I also urge you to embrace creativity and flexibility. Nursing is both a science and an art, and creative problem-solving will often be your greatest asset in providing quality care. Don’t hesitate to think outside the box, especially when faced with challenges.

In addition to providing care, remember that nursing involves collaboration. Be a willing partner with community organizations and roll up your sleeves to work alongside them. Your role as a nurse isn’t confined to the hospital – it extends to the community, where real partnerships can make a lasting impact. Your resilience in the face of adversity will inspire others, and it’s during the toughest times that your strength will shine the most.

Lastly, always be open to mentoring and coaching future nursing students. The support and guidance you receive now should be shared with the next generation. Be ready to mentor, guide and uplift others, knowing that your experience can help shape the future of nursing.

Danielle DeOliveira, MSN, ARNP, PMHNP-BC

What inspired you to become a clinical preceptor?

I believe it is the duty of all psychiatric NPs to contribute to the education of our upcoming workforce. When ARNPs are trained by other professions, they enter practice without a full appreciation of our role, both the limits and the strengths. I want to help build students’ confidence, not only to practice effectively but to move our profession forward as well.

I also love having students because it pushes me to be a better provider. I get to hear about the new information they are learning, discuss new ideas and push myself to communicate my thought processes more effectively.

What advice would you give to our nursing students?

Don’t practice in a bubble. Make sure to reach out to your cohort, colleagues and mentors, and reach out to your professional organizations. Pay attention to the legislation that affects your practice and your license. Remember that no one else is looking out for your career, so make sure you are.

2024 Nurses of Influence recipients

The UW School of Nursing is excited to recognize the exceptional contributions of our nurses and nursing leaders. These awards highlight the close connection between the UW School of Nursing and our community partners and honor the countless ways the nursing profession enhances health and impacts lives. Congratulations to these outstanding individuals who are committed to teaching our Husky Nurses. Read more about what their nominators said about them and explore the Nurses of Influence Awards.

Karin Huster, BSN ’05, MPH ’13, Emergency Medical Referent, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (Doctors Without Borders)

Karin Huster spent nine years as an RN in Harborview’s Trauma ICU before focusing on humanitarian emergencies. Her work includes field epidemiology and advising USAID. She worked with Syrian refugees in Lebanon (2012–2013), on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa (2014–2016) and responded to outbreaks in the DRC and Haiti. She aided in crises in Nigeria (2017), Iraq (2017), Bangladesh (2018) and Gaza (2024), advocating for healthcare in conflict zones. She is a heroic nurse and advocate for the communities she serves.

Holly Vance, Manager, Wound, Ostomy, Limb Preservation & Amputation Services (WOLPAS), Harborview Medical Center

Holly exemplifies nursing through her clinical expertise, compassionate care and commitment to her patients and community. As a Certified Wound Ostomy Nurse and Clinical Nurse Educator, she has made significant contributions to Harborview Medical Center and beyond. Her leadership, dedication to evidence-based practice and passion for mentoring future healthcare providers make her an exceptional candidate for this prestigious award.

Katie Haerling, Graduate Program Coordinator and Professor, UW Tacoma School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership

Dr. Haerling was instrumental as a subject matter expert and collaborator in creating a new Washington Administrative Code for nursing education around simulation. They gave multiple presentations during public hearings to inform Washington State Board of Nursing members and the public, providing insight and education that will have a longstanding impact on nursing practice and public safety.

Sofia Aragon, Executive Director, Washington Center for Nursing

Sofia Aragon was nominated for the Distinguished Diversity Advocate Award for her tireless advocacy for diverse providers and underserved populations through policy and service. As executive director of the Washington Center for Nursing, she has worked to address the nursing shortage and support underrepresented nursing students. She developed educational tools to assist families in supporting nursing students and created a workshop to encourage BIPOC nurses to become faculty.

Her nominator stated, “Ms. Aragon has continually designed systems to increase diversity in practice, collaborating with communities to reduce disparities and improve lives.”

Keri Nasenbeny, Chief Nursing Officer, Harborview Medical Center

From the start, Keri immersed herself in the frontline experience, working alongside clinical staff to understand their challenges. She listens to and advocates for her teams, creating new leadership roles, supporting shared governance councils and ensuring staff access to resources like Healthy Work Environment seminars. Keri also increased funding for the Harborview Medical Center Ambassador Awards, helping nurses present at national conferences, all while demonstrating authentic empathy and a commitment to improving the workplace.

September News and Awards

Mayumi Willgerodt receives school nurse advocacy award

Professor Mayumi Willgerodt was selected as a 2024–2025 recipient of the School Nurse Organization of Washington School Nurse Advocate of the Year Award. The award recognizes community members who coordinate and advocate for quality school nursing services and health programs. Willgerodt has been a vital school nurse advocate committed to improving the overall health and educational success of Washington students.

Mayumi Willgerodt

Three CIPCT faculty to be inducted as Fellows of the American College of Medical Informatics

Congratulations to Bill Lober, professor in Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics; Andrea Hartzler, professor in Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education and co-director of the CIPCT program; and Meliha Yetisgen, professor in Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education. All three were among the 25 fellows selected for induction into the American College of Medical Informatics in 2024.

Eeeseung Byun and colleagues receive NIH funding

Dr. Eeeseung Byun and colleagues Drs. Hilaire Thompson, Bill Lober, Teresa Ward, Michael Levitt, Kenneth Pike and Kathryn Lee received funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for an R56 study titled “Technology-based Sleep Self-Management Intervention for Adults with Subarachnoid Hemorrhage.”

Sydney Horen competes on The Floor

SoN Advancement’s own Sydney Horen competed as a contestant on season two of Fox’s The Floor, hosted by Rob Lowe. The season premiered September 25, 2024.

Promotional graphic for season two of The Floor

ITHS pilot funding supports translational science projects

The Institute of Translational Health Sciences announced the winners of its Translational Science Acceleration Awards, including projects involving UW School of Nursing faculty.

Ayokunle Olanrewaju, PhD, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering at the University of Washington, received funding for the project “User-centric microfluidics for decentralized therapeutic drug monitoring,” with UW School of Nursing faculty Jillian Pintye and Sarah Iribarren. The project focuses on developing user-centered microfluidic technology for rapid, portable therapeutic drug monitoring.

Kerryn Reding, PhD, MPH, RN, associate professor at the University of Washington; Weichao Yuwen, PhD, RN, associate professor at UW Tacoma; and Maggie Ramirez, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Washington, received funding for “Promoting diversity and inclusion of research study participants through developing linguistically and culturally tailored virtual study assistants using generative artificial intelligence (AI).”

The project will develop a virtual study assistant prototype to support research teams conducting translational health science research, with a focus on increasing opportunities for underserved communities to participate in research.

Josephine Ensign featured in The Seattle Times

Josephine Ensign was quoted and her book, Way Home: Journeys Through Homelessness, was mentioned in the Seattle Times story “How and why life for unsheltered youth on The Ave has shifted.”

New Premera Rural Nursing Health Initiative cohort begins fellowship

A new cohort of the Premera Rural Nursing Health Initiative began its fellowship in September 2024. These advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNPs) are dedicated to advancing care in rural communities.

Throughout their fellowship with the University of Washington School of Nursing, they will gain experience through clinical rotations in rural healthcare settings, directly contributing to improved health outcomes.

Watch a video about the Premera Rural Nursing Health Initiative fellowship cohort.

Executive Dean Welcome to 2024-2025 Academic Year

Welcome to the 2024–2025 academic year! The energy on campus is infectious, with the excitement of new beginnings, crisp autumn air and Husky football making this my favorite time of year.

Our school is energized by our people and the possibilities that lie ahead. Across our three campuses, we are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where we prepare the next generation of healthcare leaders and advance nursing science and practice. This year, we’re excited to engage in a strategic planning process that will shape the future of nursing education, research and practice.

Whether you’re a student, staff or faculty member, community partner, alumnus or supporter, your role in shaping the future of nursing is invaluable. We have fantastic events lined up, from the Dawg Dash to Dawg Tank, the Nurses of Influence Awards and more.

This year is filled with hope and opportunity. Let’s embrace it together, reconnect with old friends, make new ones and work together to make this year one of growth and success. Thank you for being part of our vibrant community. We look forward to achieving great things together and making a lasting impact on health for all.

Announcing 2024 Equity-Minded Nurse Awardees

We’re excited to announce that Associate Professor Dr. Rebecca O’Connor has been named one of the 2024 Equity-Minded Nurse Awardees. Dr. O’Connor received the 2024 Equity-Minded Nurse Educator Award.

The Equity-Minded Nurse Educator Award recognizes a nurse whose efforts demonstrate excellence in supporting a diverse nursing student body and inclusive teaching and learning practices, and whose teaching or curriculum design includes topics that lead to the graduation of equity-minded nurses. The award is co-sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

The 2024 Equity-Minded Nurse Awards are presented by the AARP Center for Health Equity through Nursing and the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The awards recognize nurses who are helping advance health equity through education, practice, research and leadership.

Unlocking the Potential: Advanced Practice Psychiatric Provider Fellow Sarah Kim

A unique opportunity for new advanced registered nurse practitioners to advance their careers in psychiatry

Sarah Kim, Advanced Practice Psychiatric Provider Fellow

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, specialized training programs play a pivotal role in preparing professionals to meet the diverse and complex needs of patients. One such program making a significant impact is the University of Washington School of Nursing Advanced Practice Psychiatric Provider Fellowship Program (APPPFP), which offers a unique opportunity for new advanced registered nurse practitioners to advance their careers in psychiatry.

Fellowship programs like the APPPFP are relatively new. They are designed to support each fellow’s transition to independent practice and enhance their proficiency in their field.

Kim’s journey into psychiatry began six years ago when she embarked on her career as a registered nurse. Her passion for mental health led her through various settings, from evaluation and treatment (E&T) facilities to inpatient adolescent units and community mental health clinics.

In her three years at the latter, she encountered the profound challenges of chronic mental illness and homelessness, reinforcing her commitment to making a difference in the lives of those struggling with mental health disorders.

Driven by a desire to expand her skills and take on a more comprehensive role in patient care, Kim pursued further education through the DNP Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at the University of Washington School of Nursing. This decision marked a pivotal moment in her career trajectory, setting the stage for her involvement in the Advanced Practice Psychiatric Provider Fellowship Program.

“I chose this fellowship for the diverse experiences and variety it offers,” shared Kim.

With mentors who are always there to lend a helping hand, answer questions and provide guidance, every challenge becomes an opportunity for growth.

Sarah KimAdvanced Practice Psychiatric Provider Fellow

Kim highlights the program’s dynamic nature, where each day presents a new set of challenges and learning opportunities. These experiences help support her transition to independent practice and provide deeper proficiency in her practice.

A typical week in the fellowship involves a blend of didactic sessions, therapeutic interventions and clinical consultations. Kim’s role spans primary care, outpatient psychiatric clinics and specialty rotations in hospital settings, providing her with a comprehensive understanding of mental healthcare delivery across various contexts.

Notably, the program’s emphasis on consultation-liaison psychiatry in primary care, outpatient psychiatry and inpatient settings equips fellows with essential skills in collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to address the complex needs of medically ill patients.

Kim attests to the unparalleled support she receives from the program faculty and attending physicians.

“I have time built in to my schedule to meet with or message my attending with questions,” shared Kim. “Working together has been great – I feel very supported because they’re always there if I need help, especially with challenging cases.”

The collaborative environment fosters a sense of camaraderie and professional growth, allowing participants to navigate the complexities of their evolving roles with confidence.

A patient’s heartfelt acknowledgment of her expertise and compassionate care reaffirmed her decision to pursue a career in psychiatry, validating her commitment to making a meaningful difference in the lives of others.

“She [the patient] helped me realize psych is my niche, which made me feel confident in my choice,” said Kim. “As a new provider, it’s hard to feel assured in your recommendations, but her support made a big difference.”

— Jennifer Hunt

July/August News and Awards

Population Health Initiative executive council

President Ana Mari Cauce has named five new representatives to the 30-member University of Washington Population Health Initiative executive council. The council serves as the internal governing body for the Population Health Initiative.

These representatives, who will begin their terms in autumn quarter 2024, are:

Joan Casey, associate professor of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health
Yonn Dierwechter, professor of Urban Studies, UW Tacoma
Sarah Gimbel, professor of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, School of Nursing
Hamed Mamani, professor of Operations Management, Foster School of Business
Lucy Lu Wang, assistant professor, Information School

These individuals succeed five members who left the council as part of its annual rotation.

UW Bothell

Dr. Nora Kenworthy, PhD, of the UW Bothell School of Nursing & Health Studies explores the darker side of crowdfunding in her recently published book, Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare. Learn more in the UW Bothell story “The unseen layers of medical crowdfunding” and her Seattle Times commentary, “We can’t crowdfund our way out of the climate crisis.”

2024 American Academy of Nursing Fellows

We’re pleased to announce that two #HuskyNurses have been named 2024 Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing. Fellows represent a cross-section of nursing’s most dynamic leaders making positive change in their systems and communities to champion health and wellness.

Jillian Pintye, PhD ’17, MPH, BSN, RN – Associate Professor, UW School of Nursing
Patsy Maloney, EdD, RN, MSN, NPD-BC, NEA-BC, CEN – Teaching Professor, UW Tacoma School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership

Learn more about the American Academy of Nursing’s 2024 class of Fellows.

Washington State Academy of Sciences

Fifteen University of Washington faculty members were elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2024. They were among 36 scientists and educators from across the state announced Aug. 1 as new members.

Among the UW honorees was Wendy Barrington, associate professor of epidemiology, health systems and population health and Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing.

Barrington was recognized for her combination of scientific rigor and commitment to local community health, including translating research into collaborative community interventions that directly impact the health of communities.

Learn more about the 15 UW faculty elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences.

Announcing Hilaire Thompson to serve as Executive Dean

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Hilaire Thompson will serve as the next executive dean of the UW School of Nursing, effective Aug. 1, pending approval by the Board of Regents.

Dr. Thompson, a registered nurse and nurse practitioner, is a professor in Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics in the UW School of Nursing, core faculty at the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and an adjunct professor in Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education in the UW School of Medicine. As a UW faculty member since 2006, she has held several leadership roles, including graduate program director for the School of Nursing. Through that position, she developed collaborative relationships and held budgetary and human resource responsibilities as well as delegated responsibilities from the associate dean for academic affairs. Since 2021, she has served as an associate vice provost in the Office of Academic Personnel in the Provost’s Office.

Dr. Thompson earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Mary Washington College in Virginia and her accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. She holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and completed her postdoctoral work at the UW.

She spent six years at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, with a focus on neuroscience and critical care nursing, while earning her master’s degree as a clinical nurse specialist and a post-master’s nurse practitioner certificate. During this time, Dr. Thompson met nurse scientists doing bench research, and she became intrigued with this pathway as it combined her interests in biology and nursing.

Funded by support from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and foundation awards, Dr. Thompson’s research centers on improving outcomes following geriatric traumatic brain injury as well as fall prevention. This work has been recognized with induction into Sigma’s International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame, fellowship in the American Academy of Nursing and membership in the Washington State Academy of Sciences.

As executive dean, Dr. Thompson will lead the nursing programs on each UW campus and the accreditation process that integrates all three, ensure faculty and student recruitment, development and success in all aspects of the mission of the School of Nursing and align the resources and finances of the School in support of these goals.

Dr. Thompson brings incredible knowledge of and dedication to the UW School of Nursing to this leadership role, as well as a comprehensive understanding of the profession and the opportunities for the School to advance its history of excellence across the tri-campus system.

Thank you to the search committee, co-chaired by Sharon Jones, vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at UW Bothell, and André Ritter, dean of the School of Dentistry, for identifying three exceptionally strong finalists, which reflects the School’s prominence and reputation.

We would also like to express our deep gratitude to Dr. Allison Webel for her exemplary service as the School’s interim executive dean during the last academic year, including her leadership of the accreditation review for the Doctor of Nursing Practice program and the Post-Graduate APRN Certificate program.

We welcome Dean Thompson to her new role!

Disparity in endometriosis disability claims in federal appeals court, new study shows

People with endometriosis commonly face obstacles and misconceptions about disease, diagnosis and treatment. These obstacles are especially burdensome when navigating Social Security disability claims—a system relied upon by over 8 million Americans. (Social Security Administration, 2022)

Nursing scientist and postdoctoral research fellow with UW School of Nursing Research in Nursing and Global Health, Dr. Martha Grace Cromeens (she/her), JD, PhD, RN, recently co-authored a groundbreaking study demonstrating evidence of the disparity in how endometriosis disability claims are treated in federal court appeals.

The study, published in Women’s Health Issues, the official journal of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health, analyzed 87 SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) and SSI (Supplemental Security Income) claim appeals related to endometriosis and found that these claims are systematically disadvantaged, particularly among those with less access to care.

The findings showed that the courts “found subjective reports of symptoms insufficient evidence of impairment…” and, further, “expected claimants to use treatments such as contraception or hysterectomy without addressing risks…” even when such treatments might directly counter the needs and preferences of the claimants.

“The hope is that this evidence will help us create a more equitable disability application and review system for those with chronic pain conditions and noncancerous gynecologic conditions such as endometriosis,” said Dr. Cromeens.

With endometriosis, tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, affecting other parts of the body such as the ovaries, fallopian tubes and pelvis. It is a painful condition that often is not well understood by physicians and regularly evades standard methods of assessment, such as imaging. It’s not uncommon for it to be misdiagnosed as other conditions, such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), or for the symptoms to be taken less seriously than other chronic pain conditions.

Endometriosis is a relatively common chronic condition affecting more than 11% of American women ages 15 to 44, according to the Office on Women’s Health, though this number is estimated to be higher by experts due to misdiagnosis.

The study findings have broad implications for healthcare, policy and legal systems, and for the millions of underserved people who live with this and other chronic pain conditions—conditions that may also be similarly impacted by current application and review methods.

Read the full analysis: “Endometriosis and Disability: Analysis of Federal Court Appeals of Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income Claims by Individuals Suffering From Endometriosis.” Women’s Health Issues, Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health, May–June 2024 issue.

This study was co-authored with the indispensable Kathleen Knafl, PhD, FAAN; Whitney R. Robinson, PhD, MSPH; Erin T. Carey, MD, MSCR; Zakiya Haji-Noor, PhD, MPH; and Suzanne Thoyre, PhD, RN, FAAN.

2023-2024 Fulbright Scholar

Rachel Anderson with two children outdoors — Rachel Anderson

Congratulations to Doctor of Nursing Practice student Rachel Anderson, who was recognized as a 2023–2024 Fulbright Scholar.

Hometown: Fort Collins, CO

Graduation year/program: DNP, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Primary Care; 2027

What are your research areas of interest?

Infant mental health and perinatal mental health; pediatric infectious diseases

Why did you choose nursing?

Nursing has great flexibility and I like the ability to work in a variety of settings that incorporate research and patient-facing aspects.

How has your experience at the School of Nursing helped you with your career trajectory?

I have done the ABSN and part of the DNP at UW and the faculty support and access to research institutes such as the Barnard Center have been such a gift.

What are your plans after graduation?

I hope to continue to work in research and pursue a per diem Level I nursery position.

HIV PrEP Services Study

A randomized trial co-authored by UW School of Nursing Professor Pamela Kohler evaluated the effectiveness of using patient actors to role-play counseling for PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) services provided to adolescent girls and young women in Kenya – a population disproportionately affected by HIV in the region.

Patient actors participating in the PrEP counseling study in Kenya — Patient actors from the randomized trial at a health service setting in Kenya

After a two-day training intervention that included adolescent health, PrEP guidelines, values clarification and communication skills, intervention providers role-played with trained actors. Control facilities received standard national training.

“It was important to have a safe space to practice discussions about HIV with young women, so that providers could feel more confident with sensitive topics and ensure that their personal values weren’t negatively affecting young people seeking care,” said Kohler. “The providers were exceptionally receptive to feedback from the actors and their peers.”

At the end of the study, both the intervention and control facilities were assessed using what you might know as “secret shopping” or “mystery shopping.” Trained actors presented to clinics portraying young women requesting PrEP services according to case scripts, then documented their care experiences with study staff. The actors didn’t know whether the facilities they attended had received the training, and the providers did not know they were caring for actors.

The difference in quality of service was substantial.

Providers who had worked with the actors scored better for both adherence to national guidelines and communication skills. The mean quality score was 58.4% at control sites compared with 73.6% at sites where providers had worked with the actors.

That kind of impact could have far-reaching implications for improving HIV prevention not only for adolescent girls and young women in the region but also globally and for other underserved populations in need of PrEP or other health services.

Read the full study, “Patient actor training improves PrEP delivery for adolescent girls and young women in Kenya: a cluster randomized trial.”

June News Awards

Faculty

Jamie Young, DNP, ARNP, RN, FNP-BC, assistant teaching professor in Biobehavioral Nursing & Health Informatics, was selected as a fellow for the 2024–2026 Evidence-Based Teaching Program offered by the UW Center for Teaching and Learning.
Assistant Professor Omeid Heidari, PhD, MPH, ANP-C, co-authored “Colocating Syringe Services, COVID-19 Vaccination, And Infectious Disease Testing: Baltimore’s Experience” in the Health Affairs theme issue on reimagining public health.
Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA, professor and director of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging, was interviewed by Yahoo Life Senior Editor Erin Donnelly for “Is mall walking the summer’s coolest exercise?” The article highlights research by Belza and her team on mall walking.
Monica Oxford, MSW, PhD, research professor in Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, and colleagues Idan Shalev of Penn State and Carrie Dow-Smith of WakeMed received National Institutes of Health R01 funding for “The Impact of Stress and Caregiver Sensitivity on Infant Cellular Aging in a Population of Under-Resourced Families: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” The study examines Promoting First Relationships (PFR), an evidence-based program disseminated through the Parent-Child Relationships Program at the UW School of Nursing’s Barnard Center for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health.
A randomized trial co-authored by Professor Pamela Kohler evaluated the effectiveness of using patient actors to role-play counseling for PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) services provided to adolescent girls and young women in Kenya, a population disproportionately affected by HIV in the region. Learn more about the HIV PrEP services study.
Professor Betty Bekemeier co-chaired a National Institute of Nursing Research working group on climate change and health research. The group developed recommendations to help inform future NINR activities in climate change and health research.
Congratulations to our faculty who received endowed fellowships and professorships. Meet the spring 2024 endowed fellowship and professorship recipients.

Research and Intramural Funding Program

Congratulations to the following faculty members whose proposals received Research and Intramural Funding Program (RIFP) funding for the spring 2024 cycle:

Sarah Iribarren, PhD, RN | BNHI
“Building and Evaluating AI-Augmented Treatment Support for Individuals with Tuberculosis.”
Funding source: Suzanne E. Van Hooser Endowment
Alexi Vasbinder, PhD, RN | BNHI
“Impact of Preterm Birth on Aging and Inflammatory Biomarkers in Kenyan Mother-Infant Pairs.”
Funding source: Elizabeth Giblin Endowment
Avanti Adhia, ScD | CFPHN
“Deepening a Research Partnership to Advance the Use of Evidence-Informed Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Practices in Alaska.”
Funding source: Lorraine Troop Endowment

Students

Third-year PhD student Emily Ahrens received an F31 award (F31NR021096) from the National Institute of Nursing Research for “Examination of Health Disparities in ICU Delirium Prevention and Management for Patients Who Speak a Language Other Than English.” The award supports completion of her dissertation and PhD training. Her committee and consulting team includes faculty from the UW School of Nursing and School of Medicine as well as faculty at the University of Nebraska and The Ohio State University.
PhD student Pregamon Kuntajak, MSN, BSN, RN, received a grant from the Sigma Theta Tau Psi-at-Large Chapter for a proposed project focused on psychological resilience among older adults following mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury.
Doctor of Nursing Practice student Rachel Anderson was recognized as a 2023–2024 Fulbright Scholar.

Convocation 2024

Congratulations to the Class of 2024! On June 7 and 9, we celebrated our amazing #HuskyNurse students with the BSN Pinning Ceremony and UW School of Nursing Convocation.

This I Believe Nursing Statements

We’re proud to share that several of our amazing #HuskyNurse PhD students and recent graduates had their “This I Believe” essays published in the peer-reviewed journal Nursing Research. These essays share the personal journeys of our PhD students and how they see the direction of nursing science shifting.

May/June 2024 issue

Brenda Osei-Assibey, PhD ’24: “What I Believe About Nursing Science“
Mihkaila Wickline, PhD ’24: “Nursing Science: This I (Still) Believe“

July/August 2024 issue

Shao-Yun Chien, PhD ’24: “What I Believe About Nursing Science“
Jennifer Perkins, fourth-year PhD student: “This I Believe About Nursing Science“
Zih-Ling Wang, third-year PhD student: “This I Believe: The Power of “Being With”“

Announcing 2024 Spring Endowments

Congratulations to our faculty who were awarded endowed fellowships and professorships in spring 2024.

School of Nursing Endowed Chair for Health Promotion: Dr. Monica McLemore
Marilee Rasmussen Endowed Fund for Nursing Fellowship: Dr. Rebecca O’Connor
Marilee Rasmussen Endowed Fund for Nursing Fellowship: Dr. Sarah Gimbel
Marian Van Steenvoort Endowment for Excellence Fellowship: Dr. Erin Blakeney
Marian Van Steenvoort Endowment for Excellence Fellowship: Dr. Kendra Kamp
Gai and Patroni Faculty Fellowship for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: Dr. Alexi Vasbinder
Lila Scott Faculty Fellowship for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: Dr. Megan Streur
School of Nursing Alumni Endowed Fellowship: Dr. Pam Kohler

Congratulations Class of 2024!

We celebrated our exceptional nursing students who graduated in 2024! We’re proud of their dedication, compassion and hard work. As our graduates embark on this rewarding journey, we hope they continue to inspire and make a profound difference in the lives of those they care for.

Congratulations to our 2024 teaching and student honorees!

Student awardees

This award is for a student graduating from the ABSN or BSN program who has shown exceptional qualities during their time in the School of Nursing.

Ngoc Nguyen, BSN Student

“As a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant and college student, earning a bachelor’s degree is more than just fulfilling the American dream. It represents a journey of determination and resilience fueled by the unwavering support from my community. Inspired by those whom I have met along the way and helped me grow into who I am today, I’m committed to doing the same and giving back to others. I plan to pursue pediatric critical care, with the long-term goal of returning to UWSoN to become a nursing educator, where I hope to continue to empower future generations of aspiring leaders in healthcare.”

Nhia Yerkes-Vang

The Doctor of Nursing Practice Outstanding Student Award is for a student graduating from the DNP program who best exemplifies the program goals: leadership, competency, clinical decision-making and contributions to the UW School of Nursing.

Nhia completed her DNP in Population Health and Systems Leadership with a Graduate Certificate in Global Health Nursing in winter quarter 2024. Her career in public health nursing, aimed at improving the health and well-being of communities across the globe, has been driven by her identities as a Hmong refugee, a first-generation student and a global citizen. She has big dreams of sitting at every table related to health and policy – where nurses and communities are directly and indirectly impacted. Her next adventure will take her to the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in Atlanta, where she will serve as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer (injury detective!).

Libby Shah, MS Student

The Master of Science Outstanding Student Award is given to the MS student who best exemplifies the program goals: creativity, scholarship, potential in the profession and contributions to the community.

Libby Shah is a dedicated registered nurse with a passion for promoting the professional practice of nursing and best practices for the care of patients. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Washington and graduated in spring 2024 with a Master of Science in Clinical Informatics and Patient-Centered Technologies from the UW School of Nursing. Libby is excited to bring all the knowledge and skills she has gained from this program to her new role as a clinical informaticist at Bozeman Health to improve clinicians’ interactions with and perception of healthcare technology. While she does not have any immediate future academic plans, she will apply the skills she has learned in finding and evaluating research to inform and guide her work. Her personal motto is “details define the experience,” which guides her to remember that there is no aspect too small to focus attention on for improvement and that all those details add up to create the overall impression.

Zih-Ling Wang, PhD Student

The Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award recognizes a nursing graduate student who served in a teaching assistant role and demonstrated strong teaching effectiveness with the ability to communicate effectively with students and faculty.

Zih-Ling Wang is currently pursuing a PhD at the School of Nursing. She is passionate about studying mealtime behavior in people living with dementia, particularly to see whether eating experiences, physical strength or environmental stimulation could improve independence in eating. Zih-Ling is also passionate about nurturing the next generation of nursing scientists.

Mihkaila Wickline, PhD Student

The Dissertation Award in Nursing Science recognizes outstanding achievement in nursing science: knowledge requisite for the promotion, restoration and maintenance of health for individuals, families or communities.

Mihkai is a longtime bone marrow transplant (BMT) nurse and has focused her studies on health promotion in BMT survivorship. Additionally, she has dabbled in teaching undergraduate and graduate nursing and working with people in the sex trade. She is interested in the relational aspects of nursing work and loves how narrative medicine creates a platform for understanding the power of the therapeutic nurse-patient relationship. Mihkai joined the UW School of Nursing as an assistant teaching professor in autumn 2024. Together with her husband, Mihkai is raising three amazing teenagers, and their favorite family activities are basketball and traveling.

Alexia Webster, DNP Student

The DAISY in Training Award recognizes graduating nursing students for the extraordinary care and compassion they show patients and their families.

Lexi Webster graduated cum laude from Seattle Pacific University with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2019 and went on to complete a nursing residency at Seattle Children’s Hospital while working on the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit. While completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice, Lexi completed an Advanced Clinical Training Program in Infant Mental Health through the University of Washington’s Barnard Center. Lexi hopes to specialize in perinatal psychiatry and infant mental health with a focus on serving families connected to the foster care system.

Prabina Dahal, DNP Student

Faculty awards

DAISY Faculty Award

Nicola Contreras, DNP, RN, CHSE-A

Award description: DAISY stands for Diseases Attacking the Immune System. The foundation was established in 1999 by members of the family of Patrick Barnes, who died at age 33 of complications from idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. The Barnes family believes that nurses are the unsung heroes of our society who deserve far more recognition and honor than they receive.

Excellence in Clinical Teaching

Nicola Contreras, DNP, RN, CHSE-A

Award description: Respects students as adult and professional learners. Demonstrates compassion, empathy and patience. Provides safe, supportive and non-oppressive environments in which to practice and hone clinical skills.

Excellence in Promoting Diversity through Teaching

Monica R. McLemore, PhD, MPH, RN

Award description: Diversity encompasses the attributes of race, ethnicity, cultural background, age, physical ability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, speakers of English as a second language, country of origin, religion and gender.

Sandra Eyres Excellence in Graduate Teaching

Cynthia M. Dougherty, ARNP, PhD, FAAN, FAHA

Award description: The Sandra Eyres Excellence in Graduate Teaching recognizes faculty who consistently stimulate creative and critical thinking.

Rheba de Tornyay Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Nicola Contreras, DNP, RN, CHSE-A

Award description: Stimulates creative and critical thinking and student interest and facilitates productive classroom dynamics. Incorporates research and evidence-based practice in presentations and support materials. Continuously self-reflects and modifies own teaching techniques. Respects and recognizes students as individuals invested in their own learning.

UW School of Nursing Research Mentorship Award

Cynthia M. Dougherty, ARNP, PhD, FAAN, FAHA and Sarah Iribarren, PhD, RN

Award description: Recognizes faculty who made a significant contribution to conducting research in nursing science and practice-based inquiry.

Scholar Spotlight: Lee-Ling Chen

Lee-Ling Chen

Lee-Ling Chen is one of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s 2023–2024 Healthy Aging Doctoral Scholars and a UW School of Nursing DNP student in the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner track. Her project is “Fall Prevention and Management for Older Adults in Assisted Living Service Programs within Retirement Communities.” Her faculty mentor is Jonathan Auld, PhD, MAT, RN.

Why did you choose nursing?

My interest in nursing dates back to when I was about 10 years old. My grandmother was hospitalized with a post-hip replacement infection. One of my aunts insisted on giving her more nutritional support in hopes of keeping her alive. However, her body was declining and unable to absorb the nutrition and fluids. I felt that there was no purpose in prolonging her suffering. Eventually, she passed away after a few days. This experience profoundly impacted me and shaped my future aspirations. I realized the importance of providing the best care to patients based on their wishes and desires. Letting the loved one go is uneasy, but nursing guides us in listening and providing support for patients and their families.

Nursing is a rewarding career because it allows me to help people and make a positive difference in their lives. Additionally, the knowledge I gain can also be used to care for my own family. That’s why I chose nursing.

What made you interested in this topic for your DNP project?

For my DNP project, I am focusing on fall prevention and management in a retirement community, specifically targeting older adults who receive assisted living services. My interest in this topic is deeply personal. My dad has Parkinson’s disease and now also has dementia, which significantly affects his daily activities and balance. He has fallen multiple times, resulting in various injuries and fractures.

Through this project, I hope to develop strategies that will help older adults in assisted living programs prevent falls. Observing my father’s struggles made me realize that there are ways we can improve fall prevention and support the residents in these facilities. That’s why I chose to work on this topic.

Why is this research project important to do?

Fall prevention is a significant topic that has been discussed for a long time, but there is not much research focusing on older adults in assisted living services. Furthermore, the senior retirement community that I worked with was seeking recommendations on updating their fall prevention and management policies, which have remained unchanged since 2013. Effective fall prevention measures have markedly decreased falls, leading to cost savings and reduced mortality and morbidity.

For this project, I utilized the Ottawa Model as the framework, focusing on the Assessment phase, which includes innovation, potential adopters and the practice environment. This approach helped identify barriers and informed project planning, aiming to bridge the gap between current practices and evidence-based recommendations. The findings from my project included comparing recent guidelines with Era Living’s policy and conducting an assessment of staff and residents via interviews. These interviews focused on awareness, attitudes, knowledge and experiences related to fall prevention and management.

Has there been anything that surprised you while working on the project so far?

I was surprised that I didn’t find much evidence specifically focusing on fall prevention in assisted living. There’s limited information available on this area, possibly because I restricted my research to recent years. To address this, I used similar research on fall prevention and gathered related evidence that could be applied to residents in assisted living.

Another surprising finding was the reliance on community health nurses in retirement communities to identify individual risk factors and the confinement of fall risk assessment. According to the AHRQ’s Safety Program for Nursing Homes, an effective policy should incorporate interdisciplinary input on resident fall risk. This highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary input in creating comprehensive and effective fall prevention strategies. It made me realize how crucial it is to involve various healthcare professionals, residents and families in assessing and managing fall risks to improve older adults’ overall safety and well-being.

What interests you about healthy aging and gerontology?

What fascinates me about gerontology is how our bodies change as we age. The presentation of symptoms in older adults can be atypical compared to younger individuals, which requires a specialized understanding of their unique needs. Older adults are a vulnerable population, and my interest in gerontology arises from my desire to help them navigate available resources and avoid unnecessary medications through deprescribing.

By focusing on healthy aging, I aim to improve the quality of life for older adults and support them in maintaining their independence and well-being. Everyone will get old. We’re aging every day, but the key is how to age healthily.

Did you have any past experience working with older adults in your career before you came to the DNP program?

I worked in the orthopedics unit and primary care settings before I came to the DNP program. At the hospital, I cared for many older adults who needed knee and hip replacements, as well as those with fractures and amputations. I loved interacting with them and learning about their lives, which provided me with invaluable insights into the challenges they face.

In my career, I also learned a lot from older nurses in the primary care setting. They have shared invaluable life lessons and knowledge with me, enriching my professional growth and understanding of geriatric care. Their mentorship has been instrumental in shaping my approach to nursing.

Additionally, I have always been the one taking care of my grandparents and now my parents because I have a nursing background. I truly appreciate the time spent with them and being able to utilize my nursing skills in caring for them.

May 2024 News and Awards

Students

Congratulations to several of our students who received scholarships. Meet the Spring 2024 scholarship recipients.
PhD student Elizabeth Frazier was selected as the 2024–2025 Magnuson Scholar for the UW School of Nursing.
On Friday, May 17, BSN students presented their posters at the 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium. View photos from the symposium on Facebook.

Faculty

Jennifer Sonney’s work, in collaboration with other University of Washington researchers, creating the virtual reality environment Relaxation Environment for Stress in Teens (RESeT), was featured in UW News.
Listen to the Voices of Nursing podcast episode “Becoming a Nurse Researcher and Advocate” with Dr. Monica McLemore. She shares key moments that inspired her journey to becoming a nurse researcher and advocate.

Alumni

UW School of Nursing PhD and MN alumna Jung-Ah Lee’s work with caregivers for people with dementia was featured in the University of California, Irvine Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing’s Humanitas magazine. Read “I No Longer Feel Alone.”
The annual UW School of Nursing All Class Reunion was held Saturday, May 18. It was a wonderful event and heartening to see alumni reminisce and share stories of their adventures after graduation. Attendees heard from a dynamic panel of current faculty and alumni on “The Future of Nursing” and saw a sneak peek of the nursing documentary Everybody’s Work, created in collaboration with the school’s Manning Price Spratlen Center for Anti-Racism & Equity in Nursing. View photos from the All Class Reunion and hear from attendees.

Advancement

UW chemistry professor emeritus Larry R. Dalton and his wife, Nicole A. Boand, announced a $10 million bequest to the School of Nursing to support scholarships and clinical education. Learn more about the Dalton-Boand bequest.

Nurses Month 2024

See how the UW School of Nursing celebrated our amazing #HuskyNurses during National Nurses Month 2024.

UW’s Larry Dalton and wife, Nicole Boand, commit $10 million bequest for scholarships, clinical education

The University of Washington School of Nursing announced a $10 million bequest from UW chemistry professor emeritus Larry R. Dalton and his wife, Nicole A. Boand.

Nicole Boand and Larry Dalton — UW’s Larry Dalton and Nicole Boand announced a $10 million bequest to the School of Nursing to support scholarships and clinical education. *Photo: Dennis Wise/University of Washington*

At the time, the gift commitment was the largest in the history of the School of Nursing. It will increase access to nursing education, with $8 million dedicated to cost-of-attendance scholarships. The remaining $2 million will be used to enrich and expand clinical education, including the recruitment of clinical nurse educators who can provide practical, on-the-job training for students.

Read the full UW News story by Jackson Holtz.

Scholar Spotlight: Shao-Yun Chien

Shao-Yun Chien

Shao-Yun Chien is a UW School of Nursing PhD in Nursing Science candidate and one of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s 2023–2024 Healthy Aging Scholars. Her dissertation is on “Developing a Culturally Sensitive Web-based Discussion Platform to Reduce Social Isolation and Loneliness Among Older Chinese Immigrants.” Her faculty mentor is Oleg Zaslavsky.

Why did you choose nursing?

I grew up in a family where many members were part of the healthcare industry, and they were always eager to help others. I remember my father often rushing to the hospital in the middle of the night to take care of patients.

In addition, I have always been close to my grandparents and enjoy conversing with seniors because they have so many stories and rich life experiences to share. In high school, my grandfather fell ill and was hospitalized. I felt helpless and unsure about what I could do to ease his pain and improve his condition. This motivated me to acquire knowledge and skills in nursing, not only to help him alleviate pain, but also to maintain a better quality of life.

Overall, I think healthcare is crucial for everyone from birth to the end of life. Learning nursing can help others as well as oneself. So I chose nursing.

What interested you about healthy aging in particular?

Healthy aging fascinates me because it’s a multifaceted challenge that combines the physical, mental and social. As the global population ages, understanding how to maintain and improve the quality of life for older adults is becoming increasingly important. I’m particularly interested in how we can use innovative interventions like technology to support the mental and physical health of the elderly to ensure they lead fulfilling and independent lives.

After I graduated from university, I worked as a nurse at a medical center in Taiwan, and approximately 80% of patients in my ward were older adults. It’s common to see patients distressed when their condition doesn’t improve as they expected after acute care and treatment. The medical personnel are usually focused on treating physical symptoms and often overlook the psychological aspects.

I wanted to enhance my understanding of mental health and psychiatric nursing in order to solve this issue. So I went on to study at the UCSF psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program, concentrating on the psychological well-being of older adults.

You mentioned that you’re interested in technological interventions for older adults. What interests you about the technology interventions?

Because there is an important issue that’s called a digital divide. So many older adults struggle with using technology due to fear or aging, like visual impairments or hearing impairments, or other illnesses like depression or dementia. They’re not able to use technology products like younger generations. So they’re missing out on the convenience brought by technological advancement. I think it’s important to bridge this gap to increase the usability of technology for this population.

What is your project as a de Tornyay Center healthy aging scholar?

My project is called “Developing a culturally sensitive web-based discussion platform to reduce social isolation and loneliness among older Chinese immigrants.”

I am leading this research with a focus on designing an online community that is culturally appropriate to the needs of older Chinese immigrants. The platform aims to mitigate and reduce the feelings of loneliness and social isolation that are prevalent in this demographic.

The intervention is modeled on a virtual online community for the elderly, which was abbreviated VOCALE, developed by Dr. Annie Chen and Dr. Oleg Zaslavsky. I modified it according to the aim of this study. The revised version is named VOCALE Older Chinese Immigrants – VOCALE OCI.

This intervention, VOCALE OCI, is an online support group on an open-access platform designed to promote problem-solving and health management strategies in older adults. The participants are encouraged to share their age-related experiences and management strategies with others in weekly discussions.

How did you first get involved in the project?

My involvement in this field began with my volunteer work at a senior center in Seattle. I had the opportunity to interact with and chat with several older adults. In that senior center, most of the participants are people with low English proficiency. One of the prominent issues they shared with me was the feeling of loneliness and social isolation, such as cultural and linguistic barriers and transportation difficulties.

What they told me is that they feel they have no eyes, no ears and no feet. Because they cannot understand the language, they cannot see the signs. Or even if they go out to shop, if they have questions, they cannot ask the staff. And they don’t have feet because some of them do not know how to drive and don’t know how to even take the bus. And because of those disadvantages, they’re kind of isolated.

The situation was also exacerbated because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even now, some seniors also share that they are fearful of going out due to the risk of infection, so some of them still stay at home, and if they want to join any activity they would choose an online version.

This experience deeply impacted me and motivated me to address these issues, leading to my current research project.

Has there been anything that surprised you so far while working on this project?

I feel like the resilience and potential of the elderly might actually be beyond what we imagine. The seniors I’ve met (my research participants) have really inspired me. Initially, I thought my research was all about creating an online community to help them, but they also enriched my thinking and life with broader perspectives and experiences, which has been incredibly rewarding and precious to me.

I’ve discovered the diversity among the elderly; each of them is like a rich book with so much to reflect on and learn from. Despite the many difficulties and obstacles they faced in their migration process and adaptation, the vitality they’ve shown throughout this journey has been a huge inspiration. I believe this has been a very valuable and profound learning experience.

Having studied abroad myself, I’ve had similar experiences, but they’ve faced many more challenges and difficulties. I really admire the wisdom of the elders, and it makes me think we should be more humble in understanding and comprehending the life experiences of different people, respecting everyone’s thoughts and individuality.

Congratulations Spring 2024 Scholarship Recipients

Congratulations to various #HuskyNurse students who’ve received scholarships. We’re proud of these outstanding students who are dedicated to advancing healthcare and their commitment to excellence.

King County Nurses Association Scholarship

UW Seattle:
Basic Program: Sumaya Uthmaan
Accelerated BSN: Lina Kalume, Tigist Degesew, Stephanie Herrera, Pratikshya Sharma, and Michael Sabunod
DNP: Lily Schroeder, Kianni Demmert and Madelyn Devoe
Advanced-PhD: Tao Zheng

UW Bothell:
Basic-RNB: Jainaba Sawaneh Fatty
Advanced-Master’s: Feliz Shirlei Spearman-Altheimer

National Abortion (NAF) Clinician in Abortion Care Student Achievement Award –Madeline Mangiaracina

Elizabeth Bear CNM Leadership Scholarship from the American College of Nurse Midwives – Claire Kaine

2024 Rosemary Ford Future of Oncology Nursing Scholarship –Makayla Magette

Johnson & Johnson Our Race to Health Equity Diversity Nursing Scholarship – Sumaya Uthmaan

2024-2025 Magnuson Scholarship Recipients

Every year, exceptional health sciences students are recognized for their contributions to research and outstanding academic performance in the health sciences. We are pleased to congratulate and recognize Elizabeth Frazier, the UW School of Nursing’s 2024–2025 Magnuson Scholar.

Hometown: Originally from Little Rock, AR, and have lived in Seattle for many years now.

Graduation year/program: PhD in Nursing Science; 2026

What are your research areas of interest?

My dissertation research is focused on exploring biological and social factors that contribute to sex and gender differences in atrial fibrillation symptoms and quality of life.

Do you have a faculty mentor?

Dr. Cynthia Dougherty

Why did you choose nursing?

I always found the physiology of the human body to be interesting and knew I wanted to go into the sciences, but it was the “human” aspect – connecting with patients – that drew me to nursing.

How has your experience at the School of Nursing helped you with your career trajectory?

I say this genuinely – my PhD journey at the UW SoN has been beyond what I could have imagined. In addition to having an incredible mentorship team, I have been privileged to receive opportunities in authorship, grantsmanship, interdisciplinary collaboration and networking and direct research experience, all of which will prepare me for a career in nursing research. But a significant part of my PhD experience has been connecting with and learning from SoN faculty and my PhD peers who are engaging in truly meaningful research. This has simultaneously pushed me to expand my lens of nursing science and helped me hone my focus for my own program of research.

What are your plans after graduation?

The long-term goal is to take a nursing faculty position.

Learn more about the Magnuson Scholar Program and the 2024–2025 Magnuson Scholars.

Elizabeth Frazier

Undergraduate Symposium 2024

2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium

Our BSN honors students presented their posters at the 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium on May 17, 2024. Congratulations to our students on their research achievements.

Date: May 17, 2024
Time: Session 1 (11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.)
Location: Mary Gates Hall

Learn more about the 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Student poster abstracts

Mentor: Maya Elias, PhD, MA, RN
Title: Exploring the Roles of Circadian Rhythm and Chronotype on Cognitive Interventions for Older Intensive Care Unit Survivors
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: Nearly 70% of older adults hospitalized in an intensive care unit (ICU) experience delirium, a risk factor for long-term cognitive impairment that persists beyond discharge. The severity of critical illness, coupled with the 24-hour care provided in the ICU, is associated with significant disruptions to sleep and the circadian rhythm. These circadian rhythm disturbances, which affect up to 80% of ICU patients, may decrease the efficacy and benefits of interventions to improve cognitive function. Few intervention studies have been conducted testing circadian-based approaches to optimize timing of interventions to prevent cognitive decline in older ICU survivors. The study aims are to: 1) assess the feasibility, adherence and tolerability of morning or afternoon sessions of a computerized cognitive training intervention and 2) explore the role of individual chronotype on intervention usability and acceptability in older ICU survivors. Participants are randomized to one of three arms: morning computerized cognitive training sessions, afternoon computerized cognitive training sessions or usual inpatient care. Participants assigned to the intervention groups complete daily 30-minute cognitive training sessions for up to seven days or until hospital discharge. Wearable sensors monitor circadian rhythm patterns via continuous body temperature and activity/sleep, and participants answer a questionnaire to determine their individual chronotype (“morning” versus “evening” circadian preference). Upon study completion, participants provide quantitative and/or open-ended feedback via surveys. We hypothesize that participants whose assigned intervention timing aligns most closely with their individual chronotype will demonstrate higher intervention adherence and report higher tolerability and acceptability. Data collection is ongoing; results will investigate the potential of circadian-based and chronotherapeutic interventions to mitigate cognitive impairment in older ICU survivors. Additional research is needed to develop personalized interventions that integrate individual circadian rhythm and chronotherapy as targets to accelerate cognitive recovery throughout critical illness.

Mentor: Monica R. McLemore, PhD, MPH, RN
Title: Integrative Review on Support for Pregnant Individuals Using Substances
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: There are unfortunate disparities that occur to pregnant individuals struggling with substance use disorder, causing harm rather than support and purposeful treatment. Punitive policies against these individuals are deeply rooted in systemic racism disproportionately affecting the BIPOC community, leading to increases in adverse birth outcomes, such as neonatal abstinence syndrome. Addressing the pressing need for improved prenatal and postpartum support for these individuals is imperative. This study identifies supportive interventions that improve the quality of prenatal care and follow-up pregnancy care. We conducted extensive interviews with healthcare experts researching prevention policies and those working directly with the target population. Additionally, we performed a systematic review of both punitive and supportive policies regarding substance use during pregnancy. We hypothesize that punitive policies adversely affect pregnant individuals by creating disparities and hindering proper pregnancy care. The study’s findings will allow us to develop viable interventions aimed at improving pregnancy care for these individuals, ultimately preventing neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Mentors: Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA / Sarah McKiddy, PhD Candidate
Title: The Relationship of Ageism, Aging, and Music on Health: Perspectives of Mandarin-Speaking Elders
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: Music interventions are gaining attention due to the evidence they improve health and cognition in elders. In the U.S., there is an increasing number of Mandarin-speaking elders whose cultural background affects their aging experience. After English and Spanish, Chinese is the third most spoken language in the U.S. Three and a half million households in the U.S. speak Mandarin or Cantonese. However, there is little information regarding specific music choices or culturally tailored music interventions for Mandarin-speaking elders to improve their health and aging experience. The purpose of this study was to gain insights into Mandarin-speaking elders’ views of aging, ageism and the relationship between music and health. We conducted a qualitative study that involved interviewing Mandarin-speaking elders in Mandarin. The interview consisted of questions related to their cultural perspectives on aging, experience with ageism in the U.S. and the impact of music on their health. The participants selected music to play during the interview and discussed what the music meant to them and their thoughts on how music affects their health. Four interviews in Mandarin have been conducted to date. Initial findings reveal that filial piety and respect are recurring cultural themes that influence participants’ perspectives and experiences of aging. Internal ageism was identified in one of the interviews while the participant discussed their experience with ageism. Participants expressed that music benefits their health by providing emotional support and an outlet, motivation, reminiscence of the past, brain activity and stimulation through physical movement such as dance. The findings increase our understanding about the role of culture in the aging experience and music’s role in enhancing health for Mandarin-speaking elders. Future studies can use this information to develop music-based interventions tailored for Mandarin-speaking elders to improve their health.

Mentors: Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA / Sarah McKiddy, PhD Candidate
Title: The Relationship of Ageism, Aging, and Music on Health in Older Adults from Kenya
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: Music is considered a therapeutic tool to improve physical, cognitive and emotional health. The nature of music varies across cultures and backgrounds around the world. This research project explored the connections between music, aging and ageism in older adults from Kenya and the therapeutic role of music in improving physical, cognitive and emotional well-being. This project considers cultural similarities and differences between Kenya and the United States and examines the unique nature shaped by different cultures. In this study, we explore how music affects the perception of age in older adults from Kenya and their perceptions of ageism. This research project focuses on using an interpretive research method where data is collected through interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the topic. The study involves three older adults from Kenya between the ages of 60 and 65. The interview questions focus on understanding the cultural influences of Swahili speakers in the context of music and ageism. Through research on the differences in aging between Kenyan and American older adults, this project seeks to identify cultural factors and explore ways that music can enhance well-being among older adults. This project provides valuable insight into cultural aspects that influence aging and the potential benefits of music-based interventions. The findings have the potential to improve our understanding of how cultural differences influence attitudes toward aging and the impact of music on the health and well-being of older adults.

Mentor: Omeid Heidari, PhD, MPH, ANP-C
Title: Integration of Substance Use Treatments Into a Primary Care Setting
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: Millions of people in the United States are suffering from substance use disorders (SUD); of particular concern is opioid use disorder (OUD) due to the high risk of overdose and death. This epidemic is a public health crisis that impacts people in every community. OUD is especially harmful to vulnerable populations who face arduous challenges in accessing treatment. People with chronic pain or complex comorbid conditions, housing-unstable communities and the underinsured or uninsured are all particularly vulnerable to OUD. Safe and effective medical treatments are available to mitigate overdose risk, but accessing them can be bureaucratically challenging for providers to navigate, which results in the relegation of OUD treatment to separate specialty facilities. This fragmentation of care impedes access and decreases provider follow-up. Substance users seeking help often face undue burdens in the form of strict sobriety requirements or incremental prescriptions necessitating frequent clinic visits. Madison Clinic at Harborview Medical Center provides care for people living with HIV and AIDS. This population is particularly vulnerable to medical stigma and bias, job instability, homelessness, chronic pain and substance use. Using a qualitative descriptive method, we conducted a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews to explore the thoughts, opinions and perspectives of providers at the Madison Clinic and people living with HIV or AIDS using substances regarding the integration of medical treatments for substance use into the primary care setting. Interview transcripts were analyzed through a mix of inductive and deductive coding. Ideally, this integration would help remove barriers and alleviate the complexity of coordinating fragmented care. We anticipate co-locating routine care and treatment for opioid use simultaneously may lead to better adherence to medication regimens and increased patient and provider satisfaction with care. This research will influence the creation of a healthcare model for integrating substance use treatment into primary care settings.

Mentors: Allison R. Webel, RN, PhD, FAAN / Vitor Oliveira, PhD
Title: Improving Body Composition Through Exercise Interventions in Older People with HIV
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: As healthcare advances, older people with HIV (PWH) have a longer life expectancy. Biotechnological advancements, such as antiretroviral therapy (ART), suppress HIV replication, resulting in decreased mortality among PWH while increasing quality of life. However, despite these advances, older PWH generally experience an earlier onset of comorbidities due to increasing age, increased adiposity related to HIV medications and sedentary lifestyle, poorer physical function and high symptom burden. Physical activity is a significant non-pharmacological approach to mitigate chronic disease in older adults and promote healthy living. Among different physical activity types, exercise can be defined as structured and repetitive bodily movement, objectively improving or maintaining physical function. Exercise can take many forms and be performed at different intensities. HEALTH Study participants perform continuous moderate exercise (CME) of walking or jogging at 50% of heart rate (HR) or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) of alternating short intervals of high- and low-intensity aerobic exercise at 80%–90% and 50% HRmax. Healthy aging among PWH includes decreased fatigue, greater functional mobility and fewer symptoms of HIV and its related treatments. What is unknown, and currently investigated in the HEALTH Study, are exercise types to improve physical health outcomes in older PWH. This study aims to explore the relationship and associations between exercise interventions on body composition across older PWH participants. In this year-long undergraduate research project, we conducted a secondary data analysis to compare the effectiveness of exercise interventions, HIIT versus CME, on DEXA scan outcomes of body fat and bone density in older PWH. DEXA scans are medical imaging X-ray tests to quantify body composition. We anticipate that with increased physical activity, especially in HIIT participants, body fat will decrease, and bone density and lean mass will increase. These findings may indicate how exercise interventions can mitigate fatigue and provide recommendations to prompt healthy aging in older PWH.

Mentor: Anita M. Souza, PhD
Title: Understanding Worker Well-being of Homeless Service Employees
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: Compassion fatigue, also known as secondary traumatic stress or vicarious trauma, is a condition characterized by emotional and physical exhaustion, often experienced by individuals who provide care, support or assistance to people who are suffering or traumatized. This phenomenon commonly affects professionals in helping and caregiving roles such as healthcare workers, social workers, counselors and first responders as they’re constantly exposed to secondary traumas. This study investigates five domains of worker well-being of social services employees at a local Homeless Services Agency in King County. Seventy-five social workers and case managers were invited to participate in the online, anonymous survey that contains the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Worker Well-being Questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of 68 questions related to work evaluation and experience, workplace policies and culture, workplace physical environment and safety climate, health status and home, community and society. We hypothesize that those who have been employed at the Compass Housing Alliance for more than two years will exhibit higher compassion fatigue through their survey responses. The insights gathered will aid in understanding the working environment on service employees’ well-being. Results will offer areas to support workers and hopefully serve to mitigate the potential development of compassion fatigue among staff members.

Mentor: Anita M. Souza, PhD
Title: Examining Worker Well-Being Amongst Social Service Workers who Aim to Alleviate Homelessness
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: As the percentage of individuals facing homelessness rises, many organizations working closely with unhoused populations aim to secure consistent housing and essential resources for those who lack this necessity. There are roughly 14,000 individuals facing homelessness in the greater Seattle area. Previous studies have shown positive correlations between employee well-being and job performance. Our research aims to investigate worker well-being among staff members who are currently employed at the Compass Housing Alliance, an organization working closely with unhoused populations to provide both housing and access to other essential needs. This research utilized the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) worker well-being survey. We collected data on five factors that influence the perceptions of 75 staff members on their overall well-being, including workplace safety, mental wellness, leadership support, coping strategies and job satisfaction. Expected results from our survey indicate that staff members’ perceptions significantly impact their overall well-being. Collecting data using quantitative methods enables us to gain a deeper understanding of these current perceptions in order to utilize relevant resource implementation in areas where gaps are identified to support the needs of staff and improve their well-being.

Mentor: Tamara C. Cunitz, MN, RN
Title: Nashi Warm Line Needs Assessment: Supporting Ukrainian Refugees with Emotional Health and Resource Allocation
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Abstract: On February 24, 2022, Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Washington state was already the home of over 42,000 Ukrainian immigrants, and since the invasion, upwards of 22,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived. Refugees face significant challenges due to obstacles stemming from the trauma of war, displacement, resettlement and the lack of access to essential health and social services. The Nashi Immigrants Health Board is a nonprofit, community-based organization founded by public health professionals. Nashi partners with the Ukrainian community via health promotion, education and advocacy programs and provides culturally and linguistically appropriate public and mental health services. Nashi’s warm line was created as a caller line for Ukrainian-speaking communities, primarily refugees fleeing Ukraine, to provide psychosocial support and connection to community resources. The purpose of this study is to examine the data collected during warm-line calls to identify the greatest needs and streamline resources for the community. Warm-line operators record anonymous information such as age, ZIP code, primary language, purpose of the call and action taken. Caller data are entered into a database with specific categories and analyzed for trends and patterns of needs, which will help Nashi refine the pathways to interventions and resource allocation. We hypothesize the callers will be mainly calling about needs such as housing, health insurance and job opportunities. We expect the navigators to provide emotional support in addition to resources, even if callers are not expecting or requesting it. The findings would help Nashi inform the Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance (ORIA) for future programming and quality improvement interventions. The study results are not inclusive of every need in the Ukrainian refugee population. Ongoing efforts of resource allocation would continue to evolve based on the changing needs of the Ukrainian community.

Sarah Gimbel’s research empowers nurses for greater impact around the globe

How an innovative approach inspired by the quality improvement world is empowering nurses for greater impact around the globe

Nursing science researcher Dr. Sarah Gimbel (she/her), PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, has spent the better part of her career figuring out how to help frontline nurses take the reins of their impact in healthcare settings.

A professor and director of the UW Center for Global Health Nursing, Gimbel’s research has primarily taken place in Mozambique, where she has worked closely with nurses and doctors in HIV services. Over time, her research scope has expanded to include hypertension and diabetes.

Health workers participating in a SAIA cascade analysis meeting in Mozambique — Health workers during the monthly SAIA meeting in Mozambique

The science of how work gets done and how systems can be improved is Gimbel’s passion. If you ask, she will be the first to say that bringing people together, in a methodical way, to understand a problem and craft informed decisions is where the magic happens.

Gimbel’s particular approach, called the Systems Analysis and Improvement Approach (SAIA), bundles three systems engineering tools to build healthcare teams’ systems-thinking IQ with a uniquely implementation science spin. To the layperson, SAIA may at first sound wonkish. Until you look closer.

Various approaches to systems engineering and quality improvement have developed and spread across countries and industries for decades – Kanban, Agile Scrum, continuous improvement, total quality, Lean Six Sigma. You name it. Gimbel simply combined proven approaches with three practical systems engineering tools – cascade analysis, process mapping and quality improvement circles – that nurses said time and again they needed to do their jobs well.

The goal of SAIA is simple: help nurses and other healthcare teams optimize service delivery care cascades – in other words, ensure that clients receive complete, high-quality care from screening to diagnosis, prescription, treatment and control or resolution of illness.

While most improvement strategies target a single step in a system, SAIA encourages teams to focus on the system as a whole from the patient perspective. On a monthly basis, care teams meet to jointly visualize treatment cascade drop-offs and prioritize areas for system improvement, identify modifiable facility-level bottlenecks and propose, implement and assess the impact of small changes.

Developing care team consensus through strengthened communication is seen as key to achieving better patient care and long-term outcomes. It puts the work of improving the health system into nurses’ hands – one clinic or care setting at a time.

Health workers participating in a monthly SAIA meeting in Mozambique — Health workers during the monthly SAIA meetings in Mozambique

“We aim to bridge the gap between knowledge and action,” Gimbel said. “Nurses know their patients and settings best. They are best equipped to make change. They don’t need to be told – they just need the right tools and support to do it.”

With SAIA, frontline workers have a voice in improving the way work gets done, benefiting both patients and nurses.

Gimbel makes it clear that SAIA was not developed in a vacuum, but in deep collaboration with others – implementation science and engineering experts at UW and nursing and care delivery experts across the world. At the time, SAIA was entering its 14th and 15th funded iterations: SAIA for management of opioid use disorder for individuals exiting jail in King County and SAIA to optimize tuberculosis management in rural South Africa.

Gimbel says the effort, enthusiasm and dedication of nurse leaders and frontline staff have allowed SAIA to mobilize and be sustained in under-resourced clinical and community settings globally.

“Three-fourths of patient care globally is handled by nurses,” Gimbel said. “Their perspective to test interventions, identify health system weaknesses, is not just important – it’s absolutely necessary.”

The goal of SAIA isn’t only to improve the quality of care nurses provide to patients. Across the nation and the world, healthcare systems continue to face nursing workforce shortages and burnout.

SAIA’s collaborative approach also has the potential to enhance nurses’ overall experience in the workplace. By focusing on their needs and empowering them, nurses can benefit from a healthcare system that is more responsive, efficient and ultimately better for both healthcare providers and patients.

Gimbel’s research methodology and the SAIA approach more generally inherently involve engaging with nurses and frontline health workers, understanding their perspectives and working collaboratively to find solutions that work within the context of their daily challenges.

While some could describe the approach as pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Gimbel is a pragmatist at heart, and the outcomes of these conversations are meant to be practical, durable and feasible, leading to sustainable improvements in healthcare services – even in resource-constrained environments. Realistically, that describes many healthcare settings today.

“Nurses are at the forefront of healthcare delivery, and their expertise and insights are the missing ingredient to the broader challenges of our health system,” said Gimbel. “By empowering nurses, we have seen change happen. And with SAIA, that kind of impact scales up.”

— Alex Abplanalp

April 2024 News and Awards

Faculty

Research Professor Cynthia Price’s research, funded by the Institute of Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) and the UW School of Nursing RIFP program, was featured in a recent ITHS article, “ITHS-funded study shows increased connectivity in key areas of the brain.”
Faculty Senate Chair and School of Nursing Professor Cynthia Dougherty was featured in a UW Today article about her work improving faculty well-being and helping faculty have conversations about difference.
Associate Professor Eeeseung Byun was invited to present Post-Ischemic and Hemorrhagic Stroke–Cognitive Rehabilitation? at the 2023 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
Governor Jay Inslee appointed Professor Monica McLemore as the new Washington Health Benefit Exchange (Exchange) Board Chair.
Associate Professor Jennifer Sonney was quoted in a recent Seattle Times article, “How to stay healthy during cold, flu and COVID-19 season.”

Students

Congratulations to DNP student José Reyes for receiving a Latino Center for Health Graduate and Professional Student Fellowship.
BSN student CJ Rivera was selected as the recipient of the UW Queen Silvia Nursing Award (UWQSNA).

Alumni

Alumna Ceci Gilmore was mentioned in the recent UW Magazine story, “Delivering hope: A UW program works to improve maternal health outcomes for Black women and other underserved community members.”

UW Tacoma

We’re proud to announce the 2024 UW Health Sciences Martin Luther King, Jr. School of Nursing Community Service Award recipient Dr. Sharon Laing, Associate Professor of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

Transforming healthcare education: The inspiring generosity of Drs. Gaylene and Leonard Altman

A four-decade faculty member and clinical educator, Dr. Gaylene Altman (she/her), PhD, RN, MN, is author of multiple nursing textbooks, longtime facilitator of clinical education at UW SoN’s world-class Simulation Center and a distinguished scholar — but her first passion is teaching. Now, her dedication to her students has inspired her and her family’s transformational philanthropic investment in the University of Washington.

“I love teaching undergraduate nursing students…partnering with students to get them to be the best they can be. That’s really been a rewarding experience, watching the transformation from novice to a highly educated nurse.” Consequently, she has received many nursing teaching awards, including one of the University’s highest honors: the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Gaylene’s story has more humble beginnings than the accolades might let on. Yet the whirlwind to follow would keep Gaylene and her spouse, Dr. Leonard (Len) Altman, on the leading edge of both nursing education and practice ever after.

Her journey began, of all places, on a farm in the Midwest.

“I grew up on a farm, milking cows, caring for animals and working on tractors at an early age in the wheat fields. Teamwork was important for survival,” Gaylene shared. “One summer in my sophomore year, my parents let me accept a nurse’s aide position at a local hospital.” The hospital was about 30 miles from the farm. “That was my first exposure to nursing, and I knew this was my calling.”

Gaylene’s newfound love of nursing took her to the University of Kansas, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. “Since I needed financial assistance to immediately pursue the next level, I sought schools with financial assistance or any traineeships,” she said. That’s when she learned the importance of financial support for students. “Traineeships were available federally due to the shortage of nurses and I investigated at schools where that assistance was available. The UW was one of those places.”

She leapt right into her master’s degree at the University of Washington.

After completing her degree, Gaylene became involved in the early days of public education about a medical intervention we now often take for granted in today’s public square — cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

As nurses usually are, she was in the right place at the right time. She was working for a regional medical program when she first received a call from Dr. Leonard Cobb, co-founder of Washington’s first Medic One.

Dr. Cobb had a simple idea that was revolutionary for its time. Create the area’s first 911 program. But they needed professionals to develop and deliver the training. Already an educator and an intensive care nurse at Harborview Medical Center, Gaylene was in.

She taught CPR to ski patrol members, first response interventions to firefighters and set up what became known as the “Pink Pig,” a large van outfitted with lifesaving equipment. With the assistance of designated cardiologists, she co-led a program to develop cardiac intensive care units around the state and in Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

Altman-Bouska family — Altman-Bouska Family

Len Altman was a medical intern at the time, before they were married, and was often on board the Pink Pig when they were dispatched to life-saving calls.

Today, Len is a clinical professor in the UW Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and has authored many publications, including several textbooks.

In many ways, the inspiration and tenacity for improving healthcare that characterized those early days in the Pink Pig never really faded for both Gaylene and Len.

True to her commitment to nursing education and research, Gaylene received her doctoral degree in 1992 — and hasn’t stopped advocating for nurses, nursing students and the patients they serve since.

“Everyone will see a lot of changes in their career, but this was a unique period of time, especially in nursing,” Gaylene shared. “I’ve often thought I should write a book about the changes I have seen in my 50 years as a nurse. Because physicians are recognized, but sometimes they don’t recognize how nursing was involved in the groundbreaking parts of changing healthcare.”

Together, the Altmans have forged a lifelong legacy of supporting the educational journey of students who choose to care for others in medicine and nursing.

Health Sciences Education Building exterior — Exterior building shot

This belief in the importance and value of healthcare education underpins the philanthropic support the Altmans have generously provided to UW. The recently opened Health Sciences Education Building, for example, is a promise made real of a bold and innovative interprofessional and transdisciplinary education accessible to all. The building is a technologically sophisticated space dedicated to interactive classroom and study spaces for students of all UW health sciences schools — nursing, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, public health and social work — to promote active learning, interdisciplinary education and collaboration.

“This is how we’re going to improve patient care,” Gaylene asserts, “if we have whole teams looking at the big picture at the same time and saying, ‘Oh, I see this. I see that.’ I think the new building is an ideal place to have that happen.”

Gaylene saw, starting with her days at the University of Kansas, the power of small, interdisciplinary teams out in the community together, seeing patients as a team and helping direct the best care from all team members.

Transdisciplinary education in the context of healthcare brings different health science disciplines into harmony, building new knowledge and drawing connections that otherwise may not have surfaced for the provider or the learner — more so than would be possible in highly siloed educational environments, where only one discipline is emphasized.

Gaylene Bouska Altman and Leonard Charles Altman Student Lounge

As University of Washington Laureates, Gaylene and Len believe fervently in the power of a transdisciplinary health sciences education. This belief, founded in practical observation and extensive education, drove their generous philanthropic investment totaling $500,000 in the Health Sciences Education Building. Their passion for creating space and support for the student experience led to the naming of the Gaylene Bouska Altman and Leonard Charles Altman Student Lounge. The Altman Bouska Student Lounge was created to ensure that students also have a place to learn and spend casual time with their peers — both to support students’ well-being and to foster cross-school camaraderie.

“If we create rooms in the new building that are really set up as interdisciplinary training systems, that’s where things are going to happen, ideas to transform health care,” Gaylene said. “I see the future as trying to bring groups together.”

The Altman family’s generosity and commitment also shines brightly beyond the walls of this building. The family has made additional philanthropic investments in the School of Nursing that one simply can’t help tying back to a crucial moment in Gaylene’s educational journey — when she made the path-defining choice of UW for her master’s.

Just as Gaylene affirms that the financial assistance offered by UW clinched her choice to attend, Gaylene is firm in her conviction that other students from rural communities ought to have access to the same choice. Len has been committed to funding fellowships in his specialty as well as travel awards for new faculty. Gaylene has been committed to funding scholarships for students from rural areas at both the University of Washington and Kansas.

Today, thanks to supporters such as the Altmans, the Health Sciences Education Building is creating an environment where health sciences students learn to work as equitable members of a care team and provide quality comprehensive care for their future patients.

This opportunity is only made possible by the generosity of lifelong practitioners and humanitarians, individuals who not only envision a better future for healthcare in Washington but also possess the strength of will to see it through.

Faculty and alumni recognized at 2024 WIN conference

The UW School of Nursing is proud to recognize several faculty and alumni who were honored at the 2024 Western Institute of Nursing (WIN) annual conference, held April 17–20.

Congratulations to:

Pamela H. Mitchell, BSN ’62, PhD ’91, RN, FAAN, FAHA, UW School of Nursing Professor Emerita
2024 WIN Professor Emeritus
Allison Webel, RN, PhD, FAAN, Interim Executive Dean, UW School of Nursing
2024 Western Academy of Nurses inductee
Paula Cox-North, MN ’05, PhD ’13, ARNP, UW School of Nursing Teaching Professor
2024 Regional Geriatric Nursing Education Award
Jung-Ah Lee, MN ’02, PhD ’08, RN, FGSA, FAAN
2024 Regional Geriatric Nursing Research Award: Senior Researcher
Julie Postma, PhD ’07, RN
2024 Western Academy of Nurses inductee

Celebrating the birthday of Dr. Rheba de Tornyay

Being old is not a disease, it’s frankly an achievement.

Dr. Rheba de TornyayFormer UW School of Nursing Dean

On April 17, 2024, we celebrated the birthday of Dr. Rheba de Tornyay. Dr. de Tornyay served as dean of the UW School of Nursing from 1975 to 1986 and was a dedicated proponent of gerontological nursing. She was passionate about nursing education and promoting healthy aging. The work of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging is possible thanks to the generosity of Drs. Rudy and Rheba de Tornyay, whose support helped establish the center and made possible 26 years of contributions to gerontological nursing.

Learn more about Dr. de Tornyay’s life, career and continued impact through the center’s three-part timeline of her life and legacy.

Thank you to everyone who joins us in continuing Dr. de Tornyay’s legacy: the faculty who mentor students, the researchers who further nursing science in healthy aging, the educators who weave new aging concepts through the curriculum, the thought leaders who challenge our current beliefs about aging and the students who dedicate themselves to becoming the next generation of changemakers and leaders in gerontological nursing research and practice. Together, our collective work helps move forward her vision of healthy aging for all.

What [Rheba] taught me was, don’t grieve the life you don’t have, create the life you want.

Dr. Sarah ShannonDean, Montana State University College of Nursing

[Rheba’s] real dream, I think, was imagining what future students would be able to create, what you would be able to inspire, not just in your own work, but in your work with students, your work with older adults, and to begin thinking about what is left on this agenda…

Dr. Nancy WoodsDean Emerita, UW School of Nursing

Navigating the woods: A nurse practitioner’s journey in rural healthcare, where challenges meet rewards

Melissa Mitchell, DNP ’22, was working toward her DNP when she suffered the loss of a good friend. With the support of UW disability services, classmates, staff and faculty, she was able to persevere and graduate despite the challenges and grief. After graduation, she was unsure what to do next. Diane Cashman, a clinical instructor, suggested she apply for fellowships. There were only two adult-gerontology fellowships available in Washington state, leading her to the UW Premera Rural Nursing Health Initiative (RNHI) Fellowship.

“When I got the rural health nursing fellowship, I didn’t even know where Republic was!” laughed Mitchell. “But I found out quickly and it’s a great little town,” she added.

Mitchell joined the primary care clinic during the first year Republic participated in the rural health fellowship. She faced the reality of rural healthcare, where specialists were scarce and resources limited. Yet, she found purpose in serving a population of farmers, miners and loggers, navigating challenges like access to care and limited resources.

Melissa Mitchell in front of Republic Medical Clinic

“Practicing in rural areas, you need to have knowledge in multiple specialties because unlike in a larger, well-resourced area where you can just tap the shoulder of a colleague for a consult, in Republic we frequently have to figure it out on our own,” Mitchell said.

“The specialist rotations and nursing didactic courses, you will use it all in this fellowship. You don’t have to spend a career acquiring knowledge because you will learn it all in this fellowship,” Mitchell said. “Being in this fellowship and working with this population has taught me to work and do more with fewer resources, but the rewards are immense,” she added.

After completing her fellowship, Melissa remained committed to her work in Republic, grateful for the collaborative team that supports her hybrid role. Balancing in-person and virtual patient care, she is grateful for the opportunity to extend herself daily, recognizing the vital role of nurse practitioners in providing primary care. She also encourages other new graduates to take the rural fellowship path, serving as an ambassador at recruitment events and helping recruit Republic’s next cohort of ARNP fellows.

This experience taught her resilience, adaptability and the immense rewards of serving rural communities, a journey she started thanks to the encouragement of her clinical instructor and the opportunity offered by the UW School of Nursing’s Premera Rural Nursing Health Initiative (RNHI) Fellowship.

— Kristine Wright

Two DNP students selected for CDC Fellowship

Two #HuskyNurse Doctor of Nursing Practice Population Health and Systems Leadership students, Mollie Killion and Nhia Yerkes-Vang, were selected for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) fellowship.

The EIS is a globally recognized applied epidemiology training program. During the two-year fellowship, EIS officers gain hands-on experience investigating and responding to public health challenges and emergencies.

“I’ve always had an interest in epidemiology, around disease surveillance and response and how I can align it with nursing. I really want to have more hands-on experience,” said Yerkes-Vang. “And explore disaster epidemiology, especially with the effects of climate change on the environment and health.”

“This fellowship is a great opportunity to be a subject matter expert in different infectious disease or environmental health threats. I can be a good resource for state and local health departments and be able to serve communities,” said Killion. “This fellowship hasn’t taken many individuals with a nursing background. I am excited to bring my experience with patient and community voice,” she added.

— Kristine Wright

2024 US World News and Report Rankings Released

Once again, the University of Washington’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Graduate Schools rankings.

While we celebrate the success and impact of the programs recognized by U.S. News – and many applicants use these rankings to help them select schools and discover potential areas of study – we also recognize that rankings are only one measure of success for higher education. Other measures, such as positive community impact, a student experience where all belong and opportunities to address health inequity in clinical practice, are difficult to quantify yet no less important.

The UW School of Nursing held the No. 2 overall ranking among public institutions offering a Doctor of Nursing Practice program. Our pediatric primary care nurse practitioner program ranked No. 5 and nurse midwifery ranked No. 6 among disciplines ranked by peer academic leaders. Nursing programs at UW Bothell and UW Tacoma were also among the top 10 public institutions offering a master’s degree.

Our rankings are simply a singular manifestation of our school’s broader and deeper excellence, which includes rigorous and inclusive research, education and practice every single day. Our excellence is made possible only by the hard work of our community of outstanding faculty, staff and students. Each is committed to innovation, health equity and access and the public good. We credit our most recent rankings to their efforts and eagerly anticipate the bright future of nursing education to come.

Allison WebelInterim Robert G. and Jean A. Reid Executive Dean

The UW School of Nursing is dedicated to advancing nursing science and practice through generating knowledge and educating future leaders. Our drive to advance and provide innovative healthcare, along with our committed faculty, staff, students and supporters, makes us a leading program.

Learn more about U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools ranking methodology.

Announcing the 2024 WSNA Hall of Fame Inductees

We’re proud to recognize three #HuskyNurses who were inducted into the Washington State Nurses Hall of Fame in 2024.

UW School of Nursing alumnae

Katherine Camacho Carr, PhD ’89, ARNP, CNM, FACNM, FAAN
Dawn Morrell, BSN ’95, RN, CCRN

UW School of Nursing Executive Board member

Jennifer Graves, MS, RN

We are thrilled to see these remarkable individuals recognized for their dedication and achievements in nursing in Washington state. At the time of the 2024 induction, the Hall of Fame included more than 60 members, with more than 40 UW School of Nursing faculty and alumni represented.

Congratulations to our 2024 Doctor of Nursing Practice graduates

On March 11, 2024, our Class of ’24 Doctor of Nursing Practice students presented their final projects. Congratulations to the DNP Class of 2024! Meet members of the graduating class and learn about their DNP projects. School and DNP track leadership shared a few words for the graduating students:

Congratulations to all of our Doctor of Nursing Practice students! I am amazed at your dedication, hard work and commitment to advancing healthcare and becoming nurse leaders. As you embark on this next chapter of your professional journey, may you continue to create change and a profound positive impact in the lives of your patients, their families and their communities. You all will do amazing things as #HuskyNurses and I wish you all the best in all your future endeavors!

Allison WebelInterim Executive Dean

Congratulations to the 2024 UW School of Nursing DNP graduates! On behalf of the School of Nursing faculty and staff, it has been a privilege to support you for the past three years. Your steadfast dedication, passion and tenacity have carried you to the finish line. We look forward to the remarkable contributions you will make as DNP leaders, clinicians, advocates and scholars. Today we celebrate you and all you have accomplished!

Jennifer SonneyAssociate Dean for Academic Affairs

Dear Graduates: You have done so much work to earn your degree. I am very much looking forward to partnering with you as alumni, clinicians, colleagues and researchers to unleash the power of nursing to change the future. Congratulations and I am so proud of all of you!!!

Monica McLemoreProfessor and Director, Manning Price Spratlen Center for Anti-Racism & Equity in Nursing

To the AGPCNP Class of 2024, you are remarkable. You have conquered your quest with dignity, grace and humility, and I am so very honored to have been able to be a part of your DNP journey. My best wishes as you embark on the next step of your life journey, and remember to have some fun!

Paula Cox-NorthClinical Assistant Professor and Track Lead, Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner

Our students have put enormous effort into their DNP projects, responding to the needs of their sponsoring organizations and bringing a lens of evidence-based practice change to their projects. I (and all of the faculty) am so proud of them and know that, early in their careers, they have already made a difference in the practice of midwifery in our community.

Ellen SolisTeaching Associate and Track Lead, Nurse Midwifery

Congratulations, 2024 Husky DNP-PMHNP cohort, for achieving another milestone in your professional journey. Your perseverance, compassion and dedication have brought light to people around you. These qualities allow you to be a reflective clinician, effective leader and sound scholar. We are so proud of you!

Jean TangAssociate Professor and Track Lead, Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner

On behalf of all of us in PHSL, we are SO proud of how you have grown, what you have accomplished and are incredibly excited to see what the next chapter brings you. Congratulations on the momentous occasion and know that you are now part of our family! Best of luck to all of you, and please stay in touch!

Mayumi WillgerodtProfessor and Track Lead, Population Health & Systems Leadership

To the FNP Class of 2024, it has been our privilege to teach and mentor each one of you throughout our program. It has been a joy to watch your growth, determination, passion and perseverance in becoming compassionate clinicians and excellent leaders. Wishing you ALL the very best!

Kristine TakamiyaClinical Associate Professor, Clinical Coordinator and Track Lead, Family Nurse Practitioner

de Tornyay Center at WIN

UW School of Nursing students supported by the de Tornyay Center presented their work at the 2024 Western Institute of Nursing (WIN) annual conference, held April 17–20:

Megumi Azekawa, PhD in Nursing Science student and travel scholar, was a co-presenter of the poster “Music as a Social Determinant of Health: Visual Mapping and Exploration.”
Priscilla Carmiol-Rodriguez, PhD in Nursing Science student and de Tornyay Center predoctoral scholar, presented the poster “Unhealthy Coping in Sleep-Deprived Individuals: A Concept Analysis” and was a co-author on the posters “Tracing the Footsteps of the de Tornyay Center Scholars” and “Empowering Equity: Building Anti-Racist Brave Spaces.”
Yanjing Liang, PhD in Nursing Science student and de Tornyay Center predoctoral scholar, presented the poster “Tracing the Footsteps of the de Tornyay Center Scholars.”
Zih-Ling Wang, PhD in Nursing Science student and travel scholar, was a co-presenter of the poster “Eating Experiences in People Living with Dementia: A Concept Analysis.”
Hongyu Yu, PhD in Nursing Science student and travel scholar, presented “Development and Validation of a Mobile Health Application Usability Scale for Older Adults with Chronic Diseases.”

Scholar Spotlight: Emilie Martel-Rousseau

Emilie Martel-Rousseau

Emilie Martel-Rousseau is a DNP student in the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner track and the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s 2023–2024 Myrene C. McAninch Doctoral Scholar. Her mentor is Assistant Professor Maya Elias, and her de Tornyay Center research project is the “Dementia Action Collaborative Provider Survey.”

What interests you about healthy aging?

I always enjoy caring for and connecting with older adults. As I was entering this program, I wanted to focus more on what I can do for healthy aging because I think it is an area that will be more and more important with the increasing number of older adults. It’s definitely an area of need that I feel I’m comfortable in.

What has your past experience working with older adults been?

When I was in university, I lived with my grandmother, and I was her care helper. And then I did a lot of volunteering in retirement homes through nursing school. I help older adults in my community, for example with their groceries, so they can continue living autonomously. I love getting to know what is important in their lives. As a nurse, I have not worked in a geriatric clinic specifically, but a lot of our healthcare is with older adults, and these are the patient visits I really look forward to.

So when I was trying to further my career and thinking about the DNP program, I was thinking, what do I want to do? What makes me most happy? What do I like the best? Since then, my goal has been to be a primary care provider for older adults. It was a great decision!

Could you talk a little bit about what the Dementia Action Collaborative is and what they do?

The Dementia Action Collaborative is a team across Washington state of public and private partners. They are working to prepare communities and the healthcare system for the increasing number of people living with dementia. In 2023, they updated their plan to address Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Your project with the de Tornyay Center is a survey with the Dementia Action Collaborative. How did you first get involved with that work?

My first year at UW, I was part of the Health Equity Circle, which is an advocacy group of healthcare professional students. Our team was planning to lobby the Washington State Legislature. I was looking up different pieces of legislation I thought would be valuable for our team to lobby for, and at the time, the Dementia Action Collaborative was putting in a request to get renewed for their program to continue.

So that’s how I first found out about the Dementia Action Collaborative. I lobbied for them, and it was successful. I think it was a unanimous decision for it to pass and continue.

That’s how I got interested in it. I thought, wow, that’s so cool, I would love to be a part of the collaborative. Then when I saw that the Dementia Action Collaborative was looking for a DNP student to help them with this project, I was like, okay, that’s my first choice. I thought maybe I could get my foot in the door that way. It’s been an awesome opportunity so far.

With the survey that you’re doing as a part of your project, who are you surveying and what are you hoping to learn?

The survey is a needs assessment of healthcare providers in Washington state. We are hoping to learn the barriers, challenges and successes of identifying and caring for people living with dementia from providers working on the front lines.

We’re trying to get input from any provider that cares for older adults. Our primary target is primary care providers (PCPs). We also want to reach allied healthcare providers, so that could be the dentist or the eye doctor that sees the older adults and can connect the older adult to appropriate resources. The goal is to understand how our current healthcare system is caring for people living with dementia so that we can target areas to improve on.

What types of questions are you asking them?

We ask about screening, diagnosing, referring and care management for people living with dementia. We also ask healthcare providers what they need and are interested in terms of education and opportunities to improve their own practice.

How are you and the Dementia Action Collaborative hoping to use the survey results?

We will aggregate and analyze the responses to the provider survey. We’re hoping to see what would be most helpful, where the biggest gaps are in our system right now, so that we can make changes and improve care. The results will also serve as a baseline to compare future surveys to and monitor progress in dementia-related care.

Why is this project important to do?

The Dementia Action Collaborative updates their statewide plan to address Alzheimer’s every five years. They updated it in 2023. We hope the survey will get provider input, buy-in and information from the front-line workers, so that we can make relevant and effective changes.

Has there been anything that surprised you while working on this project?

This is my first time being a professional leader in my DNP role. I’m learning a lot of leadership skills, such as leading meetings and proposing recommendations to higher-ups, which is exciting and useful for my future career.

Scholar Spotlight: Hsin-Ni Lee

Hsin-Ni Lee

Hsin-Ni Lee is a UW School of Nursing BSN student and the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s 2023–2024 Myrene C. McAninch Undergraduate Scholar. Her de Tornyay Center project is on “The Relationship of Ageism, Aging, and Music on Cognitive Health: Perspectives of Mandarin-Speaking Older Adults,” and her project mentors are center director Basia Belza and center predoctoral scholar Sarah McKiddy.

Why did you choose nursing?

It all started with my mom because my mom is also a nurse, and she is a nursing instructor in Taiwan. So I grew up in the environment. It felt familiar to me. I remember I would go to school with her as a child. Going into all the skills labs and looking at the equipment and mannequins, it was really fascinating to me.

Also, when I got the chance to go into hospitals, whether it was going in myself or going with family members, it was cool to see the nurses use their skills. It made me think, oh, I think that’s something I would want to do someday.

I enjoy taking care of people, too.

Could you briefly describe your project with the de Tornyay Center?

I’m using the project that I’m currently working on for my BSN undergraduate research program. We’re looking at the cultural impacts on the aging experience of Mandarin-speaking elders and how music can be tailored as an intervention to promote healthy aging or improve health for this specific population.

What’s your role in this project?

My role and my other colleagues’ roles are to recruit our interview participants and conduct interviews in their native language. I’m doing interviews in Mandarin with Mandarin-speaking elders, and we will be asking them about their perspectives on aging, how they feel about aging, how their culture views aging and what their aging experience is in the U.S.

In the interview, we will be playing music chosen by the interview participants, and we will discuss with them: How does this music make you feel? What kind of memories or feelings does it trigger? We also are going to ask them how they think music can benefit their health.

How did you first get involved in the project?

I applied to the BSN undergrad research program, and when I was applying for that, they had us write about our research interest. My research interest mainly surrounds older adults because I grew up living with my grandmother and saw her having struggles with her physical decline and mental struggles, too, because she has depression. It made me interested in improving especially mental health in our older population. So I wrote about that, and I got paired with faculty and a student from the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging.

Why is the work in this research project important to do?

When we were doing the literature review for the honors program, I found from the U.S. Census Bureau that there’s an increasing population of foreign-born adults, and a good portion of these foreign-born older adults are from China.

I also found other information on the aging population of Asian Americans. They’re more likely to have negative experiences when aging due to language barriers and the lack of social services that are tailored to their culture. I think it shows the importance of focusing on the cultural aspect of how we can make interventions for the general public and also not forget about minority populations.

What made you want to do research?

I’ve got a little bit of experience in research. When I was in Taiwan, I worked as a research assistant for a nursing professor in Taiwan, and her study was to find out how inner ear disorders and constipation affect seniors’ daily lives.

My role was also to go around my community and recruit these older adults and do interviews about inner ear disorders and constipation and the effects they have on their daily lives. It was a really interesting experience for me because I had never been the person to interview other people, so it really helped me practice my communication skills.

And it was just a special experience, listening to people tell me about their problems and their struggles in daily life. It made me wish that there was something I could do for them. But it also felt really cool that all the information I was collecting would be used in a way that could somehow be beneficial to their future or help people in general.

January 2024 News & Awards

Faculty

Research Professor Cynthia Price’s research, funded by the Institute of Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) and the UW School of Nursing RIFP program, was featured in a recent ITHS article, “ITHS-funded study shows increased connectivity in key areas of the brain.”
Faculty Senate Chair and School of Nursing Professor Cynthia Dougherty was featured in a UW Today article about her work improving faculty well-being and helping faculty have conversations about difference.
Associate Professor Eeeseung Byun was invited to present Post-Ischemic and Hemorrhagic Stroke–Cognitive Rehabilitation? at the 2023 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
Governor Jay Inslee appointed Professor Monica McLemore as the new Washington Health Benefit Exchange (Exchange) Board Chair.
Associate Professor Jennifer Sonney was quoted in a recent Seattle Times article, “How to stay healthy during cold, flu and COVID-19 season.”

Students

Congratulations to DNP student José Reyes for receiving a Latino Center for Health Graduate and Professional Student Fellowship.
BSN student CJ Rivera was selected as the recipient of the UW Queen Silvia Nursing Award (UWQSNA).

Alumni

Alumna Ceci Gilmore was mentioned in the recent UW Magazine story, “Delivering hope: A UW program works to improve maternal health outcomes for Black women and other underserved community members.”

UW Tacoma

We’re proud to announce the 2024 UW Health Sciences Martin Luther King, Jr. School of Nursing Community Service Award recipient Dr. Sharon Laing, Associate Professor of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

Scholar Spotlight: Lalipat Phianhasin

Lalipat Phianhasin

Lalipat Phianhasin, MS, RN, AGPCNP-BC, is a second-year PhD in Nursing Science student and the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging illustrator. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Eeeseung Byun. Her area of interest centers around social factors related to stroke survivors’ quality of life.

What interested you about stroke research?

I have a clinical background working with stroke patients, especially in the acute phase. My research will center around stroke survivors because, based on my experience, I know that most of them have a disability after a stroke. But healthcare providers mostly focus on the acute phase. What about their recovery? How are they going to go back to what’s important to them?

Why did you choose nursing?

It’s a long story. Members of my family are healthcare providers. My grandfather had to have long-term care. Instead of being hospitalized, we took care of him at home. So, our home was like a small primary care hospital. It was very holistic care as well because he had a tracheotomy tube, and we had to give him oxygen. He also had a gastrostomy tube where we fed him through a stoma. Nursing care was really familiar to me when I was a child, and that really inspired me to take care of him and also other people as well.

What made you want to go into nursing research?

It happened when I was a nursing student and when I took care of the patients in the unit, supervised by my professor. We had a class about research applications for the patient and in clinical practice. The professor always encouraged us to apply the articles by writing a care plan. That was very interesting to me, how research could help improve their quality of life.

Then, after I was interested in research, I felt like we could create our own research based on our specific site, specific population, because not all research is going to be applicable in all settings. We could publish our knowledge and our findings as well.

Then I found a way I could be a researcher, which is to pursue a PhD.

You wrote an editorial a little while ago about unconscious patients and their environment. Could you briefly describe the topic of the editorial?

Illustration of Ignite Aging 2023 presenters and musicians — Phianhasin’s de Tornyay Center illustrations

The article I wrote is how we should be aware of patients who are unconscious. They can still perceive the environment, even though they cannot respond to us. I just wanted to echo that message: please be aware of that, and value them and treat them and respect them as a human being.

Why did you think it was important to write the article?

I feel like sometimes healthcare providers, we don’t realize that. Maybe because they have seen a lot of patients like this. I think it would be great if we can create a guideline where, if we have patients who are unconscious, we just let them know and explain our plan of care.

What is your background and history with art?

When I was a child in elementary school, I loved drawing. I loved painting and all kinds of art, but I loved drawing and painting specifically. My family knew that I loved it, and they sent me to take a course. They wanted me to have another activity that I liked.

What do you like about drawing and painting?

Illustrated highlights from the Ignite Aging 2023 symposium — Phianhasin’s de Tornyay Center illustrations

I feel like it’s freedom, it’s a kind of freedom. You can create without boundaries, because sometimes in everyday life, you can do this, you cannot do this, based on social norms, especially in my country. They’re very conservative sometimes.

But art, drawing and painting, is a kind of way that we can express our emotions. We can express everything without harm to others.

Is there any connection between your art, nursing and research for you?

I feel like nursing is art and science. Art has a broad definition. To me, I feel like the skill in my art supports skill in nursing and research as well. Because every time when I would like to draw, I have to plan and organize and I am a visual person. Before I draw something, I will have a picture in my head. I feel like it trains me to think in this way. This kind of process can apply to nursing and doing research to plan and prepare for the next step of what I am going to do both in clinical practice and nursing research.

What aspects of nursing are more of an art to you?

It’s the art of communication. We have to build trust, and that’s where you need the art of communication. And I think we can gain valuable information that sometimes is very little, but it’s significant to our patient’s improvement.

Scholar Spotlight: Yanjing Liang

Yanjing Liang

Yanjing Liang is a first-year PhD student and one of the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging’s predoctoral scholars. Her research areas of interest include aging-related medical issues.

Why did you choose nursing?

The original reason is that my family members have some chronic diseases. I learned nursing so that I could take care of them and provide them with health knowledge.

After I chose nursing, I think nursing chose me at the same time.

I like nursing. It can be personally fulfilling because it provides opportunities for lifelong learning and professional development. I like connecting with people, and nurses often develop strong relationships with patients, their families and interdisciplinary colleagues.

There was a time when I worked as a volunteer in a hospice care institution in my first year as a college student. I learned about the integral role of nursing. I helped the nurses and social worker, accompanied and talked with patients with advanced cancer and took care of their children. I felt a strong sense of achievement, and at that time I felt needed.

I decided to be part of this integral role, and that’s why I say, I chose nursing and nursing chose me.

What got you interested in research?

During my fourth year of college study, I found some clinical problems in clinical rotation, but there was no new evidence. So I thought maybe I needed to learn some research skills to improve clinical conditions.

What research did you do in your master’s program, before you came to UW?

When I was a first-year graduate student, I was exploring my research direction. I participated in two or three projects.

The first one is that I had the opportunity to participate in a fundamental medicine research project exploring the phenotypes of biofilm formation in bacteria, such as Streptococcus mutans, in a wet laboratory. It let me know what research is from a different perspective.

After that, I started my clinical rotation at the head and neck cancer department and I discovered that the diagnosis and treatment can cause severe side effects for this kind of patient, such as psychological symptoms, which can lead to reduced social interaction and possible isolation.

So with this in mind, I conducted graduate research on improving social isolation among head and neck cancer survivors. I conducted a psychometric study on validating a social isolation measurement tool and used it to investigate the factors of social isolation among head and neck cancer patients.

Has there been anything that surprised you while working on those research projects?

For head and neck cancer patients, their average age is approximately greater than 55 years old. They experience more difficulties than I realized. However, due to the differences in cultural backgrounds, our participants were different in expressing their emotions compared to related studies conducted in other countries.

This suggests to me that we need to pay attention to the impact of a multicultural background. In conducting future studies, we need to focus on cultural background and what their social interaction style is.

What interests you about healthy aging?

I think the ultimate goal of doing research is to serve the public, so that our research can benefit society.

If we are able to conduct interventions for elderly patients, we can better promote healthy aging and reduce their burden of experiencing disease.

Healthy aging actually is a big topic. It doesn’t just focus on elderly. It runs through the whole lifespan of a person.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I think the head and neck cancer patients, this kind of patient has loss of body function brought by the aging process, and additionally, they have to experience the damage caused by treatment and caused by disease.

This made me realize the study of aging is actually a complex study. Because some of the older adults, they may experience chronic disease, and at the same time they experience some function reduction from aging. So we need to account for a wide range of circumstances and need to analyze differences between each individual and provide tailored interventions and health education.

Seattle Times article on emeritus faculty Doris Carnevali

Doris Carnevali

She’s Doris Schölin Carnevali, a Seattle native and local legend, for an oft-honored nursing and educational career at Swedish and the University of Washington and for what she embraced six years ago after turning 95 … and continued through this year at 101. This accomplishment is an extraordinary blog of 200-plus entries, attracting 1,000 subscribers, with the rhyming title “Engaging With Aging.”

Seattle Now & Thenby Clay Eals

The Seattle Times Now & Then column recently featured UW School of Nursing faculty emerita Doris Carnevali and her Engaging With Aging work. Read the Seattle Times article or explore the expanded version on the Seattle Now & Then blog.

Congratulations to our 2023-2024 Healthy Aging Scholars!

PhD research scholarships

Shao-Yun Chien

Scholarship: Healthy Aging Doctoral Scholar

Topic: Developing a Culturally Sensitive Web-based Discussion Platform to Reduce Social Isolation and Loneliness Among Older Chinese Immigrants

Faculty mentor: Oleg Zaslavsky, PhD, MHA, RN, FAAN, FGSA

Sarah McKiddy

Scholarship: Germaine Krysan Doctoral Scholar

Topic: Perspectives of Adolescent Musicians and People Living with Dementia and their Care Partners of an Intergenerational Music-Based Intervention: A Pilot Study

Faculty mentor: Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA

DNP research scholarships

Emilie Martel-Rousseau

Scholarship: Myrene C. McAninch Doctoral Scholar

Topic: Dementia Action Collaborative Provider Survey

Faculty mentor: Maya Elias, PhD, MA, RN

Lee-Ling Chen

Scholarship: Healthy Aging Doctoral Scholar

Topic: Fall Prevention and Management for Older Adults in Assisted Living Service Programs within Retirement Communities

Faculty mentor: Jon Auld, PhD, MAT, RN

Undergraduate research scholarship

Hsin-Ni Lee

Scholarship: Myrene C. McAninch Undergraduate Scholar

Topic: The Relationship of Ageism, Aging, and Music on Cognitive Health: Perspectives of Mandarin-Speaking Older Adults

Faculty mentor: Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA

Thank you for joining us for Ignite Aging 2023

Speaker at the Ignite Aging 2023 symposium

Ignite Aging attendees gathering outdoors during the event

Presenters speaking at the Ignite Aging 2023 symposium

Ignite Aging 2023 presenters and musicians

Thank you to the approximately 90 people who joined us for Ignite Aging 2023 to hear about current work across the lifespan from UW School of Nursing faculty and students, listen to music and discuss Engaging with Aging. The room was full of discussion and energy, and each presenter got a standing ovation – our way to honor our speakers and get guests out of their chairs.

We are so grateful to the many people who contributed, including our faculty and student presenters, musicians and volunteers, as well as Doris Carnevali for donating the Engaging with Aging books and Era Living for donating lunches for the event.

We’re also pleased to share the illustrations below by PhD student and de Tornyay Center illustrator Lalipat Phianhasin.

Graphic summary of Ignite Aging 2023 presentations on pathways to healthy aging

Graphic summary of Ignite Aging 2023 presenters and the Engaging with Aging book celebration

Graphic summary of Ignite Aging 2023 musical interludes, attendee conversations and lunch

PhD Pathways to Healthy Aging Award

Congratulations to this year’s two de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging PhD Pathways to Healthy Aging awardees:

Wonkyung Jung

Project: Social Integration and Cognitive Function Following Geriatric Traumatic Brain Injury

Faculty mentor: Professor Hilaire Thompson

Shih-Yin Yu

Project: Risk Factors and Early Prevention of Skin Cancer in Rural Older Occupational Populations

Faculty mentor: Professor Emeritus Barbara Cochrane

Scholar Spotlight: Jaemie Lam

Jaemie Lam

Jaemie Lam is a BSN student. During winter quarter in 2023, she traveled to Japan as part of the Keio University Short-Term Nursing and Medical Care Studies Program to learn about challenges of an aging society. UW students attending the program were supported by the Center for Global Health Nursing and the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging.

Why did you choose nursing?

It was a long process. I believe my interest in nursing was sparked by my interactions with nurses and nurse practitioners throughout the years during my battle with atopic dermatitis, also known as eczema. Through clinics and urgent visits, I was inspired by the role of nursing as I witnessed the care I received and nurses’ role in the medical care team. So it was definitely always in the back of my mind, but I never fully considered it until recently when I started doing CNA work.

Going through UW’s program has solidified my passion for nursing because of the requirement of critical thinking skills, cultural humility and a lifelong learning process, which are values I hold closely.

What interested you about the program?

As I was taking electives for my public health major at UW, I was taught that Japan had the longest life expectancy. I was intrigued to learn more about Japan’s healthcare system and their methods that result in their long life expectancy. Through the class, I had also learned that U.S. life expectancy is not nearly as long, and I was interested in gaining experience as to why that was the case.

By immersing yourself in another country, you learn about their culture, different perspectives and different lifestyles. I was mainly interested in this program for this reason as well. It opens up your mindset to be a better healthcare professional. In a sense, I think I learned significantly more as an exchange student in comparison to when I had solely traveled to Japan.

I also didn’t know we were going to be interacting with students from South Korea, China and the UK. This broadened my perspectives because I got to learn from their healthcare systems as well, see how different their nursing programs are, how different their jobs are, how different their schooling is, how different their lifestyles are and many more. It was life-changing as we applied our global health perspectives when tackling our global healthcare issues.

What was the most interesting experience during your trip?

Robo-care. The program designated a specific day where we got to learn about Japan’s most recent innovative care. It was life-changing to witness how Japan incorporated artificial intelligence and robots in the form of an assistive device either on hips or extremities to provide support when lifting or ADLs. These devices could either be placed on or attached with leads. It was fascinating to see how the leads were able to control an extremity through nerve stimulation of the brain and allow the user to regain functions needed for daily living.

What was your favorite part of the program?

Definitely interacting with students from all around the world. I made lifelong friends with future nurses from all over the world as we navigate challenges in our nursing careers together. It is comforting to know that we can rely on each other in difficult situations. As I stay in contact with them, it’s amusing to see how different our lives are, yet very similar as well. I am also very thankful to have met CJ through this program. We had not known each other prior, but we now share such core memories and experiences that I will now cherish indefinitely. I have learned a lot through my interactions with everyone and am forever grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in this short-term nursing exchange program at Keio University.

Scholar Spotlight: CJ Rivera

CJ Rivera is a BSN student. During winter quarter in 2023, she traveled to Japan as part of the Keio University Short-Term Nursing and Medical Care Studies Program to learn about challenges of an aging society. UW students attending the program were supported by the Center for Global Health Nursing and the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging.

Why did you choose nursing?

Both of my parents are LPNs, so I had early exposure to what nursing was aside from the medical management aspect of it. I found interest in the way that I could align my passions for health equity, social justice, connecting with others and caring for the human body through nursing.

What interests you about healthy aging?

When I got my CNA in 2020, I started off working in memory care. Before that, I had no prior healthcare experience with a geriatric population, and I found that I really liked it. I want to be able to use my career in nursing to help vulnerable populations, and right now, I believe geriatrics is the one that I connect to the most. Additionally, my grandma has dementia and lives at home with me, and I have found unique strategies to make caring for her easier on the both of us. Being a family caregiver has taught me a myriad of ways that I can recreate a more comfortable aging process for people that don’t have the privilege of aging at home.

What do you like about working with older adults?

I loved hearing about people’s life stories, and I feel like it was the easiest population to practice narrative medicine with, which is where you treat people and not just the disease or their disability. I appreciated their company and found the care that I was providing to be extremely rewarding.

What interested you in the Keio University program?

I’ve never traveled out of the country before, and I knew that Japan is known as the “super-aged” society. If I ever did get an opportunity to study aging from abroad, I would want to do it in a place that is known for having the healthiest elderly people.

Also, having a personal connection to Asian culture, I wanted to see the lifestyle differences between aging in East Asia and then aging as a Southeast Asian in the U.S. I was curious about what factors of their daily life like activity levels, diet, etc. possibly contribute to their extended lifespans.

What was the most interesting experience of your trip for you?

We went to a complex of houses that are owned by a healthcare company called Aoi Care. We got to meet the owner of Aoi Care and tour the community of around four houses that are just for elderly people. There was one house that was just for elderly people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. We were allowed to go inside while the residents were there and see what their day-to-day life is like. It was just for a couple of hours, but I thought it was so special because the care was very holistic compared to aging in a facility in the U.S.

They lacked a lot of the strict rules that facilities for elderly people have in the U.S. They didn’t lock the doors, so the residents could roam freely around the community. They also didn’t have scheduled mealtimes. They were allowed to use appliances like stoves, kettles, irons, etc. Their food was also cooked by a traditional Japanese chef who uses dashi powder to increase the appetite and food intake of the residents. Rather than having a dietitian or a nutritionist prepare healthy meals, they found that eating culturally familiar and traditional flavors actually helped the residents increase their nutrition more readily, which is important to maintain as you age.

Did anything surprise you?

We got to shadow nurses at Keio University Hospital, and I think I was surprised at how similar the workflow and dynamic was to working in a hospital in the U.S. The U.S. healthcare system has such a bad reputation, so I thought I was going to go there and see a complete change, and it really wasn’t that different. The nurse-to-patient ratios, equipment and documentation were all very similar to the U.S. I was also surprised to hear that similar nursing stress levels and staffing crises are present in China, South Korea and the UK when discussing the nursing workforce with the other students participating in the program from those countries.

What was the most interesting thing that you learned?

We learned about a free program called dementia supporter training. It’s basically the same as those training modules that you do every time you get a new job, but anyone in the general public can do them to learn how to care for people with dementia, since such a huge portion of their population is elderly. It was interesting to realize that in Japan, they try to normalize dementia. But in the U.S., it’s pretty taboo. It’s something that you don’t want people to know about. You don’t want people to talk to your elderly parents or grandparents that have dementia because it can be embarrassing.

I learned that the shame aspect of dementia comes from the majority of people being uninformed about what it is or how it manifests in elderly people. Since we try to hide our aging population in the U.S., people don’t get the chance to understand dementia, but in Japan there’s no shame aspect of dementia and aging because their elderly are still acknowledged as members of society.

Is there anything else that you’d like to share?

I want to encourage other students to apply for opportunities like this. If they see like a global health learning opportunity come up in an email, open it up and actually read through it, because you never know what you might be able to get out of it! This program really expanded my worldview of aging and healthcare in general, and I am excited to see how it influences my perceptions of other related experiences in the future.

Timeline of Dr. Rheba de Tornyay’s Life and Legacy

The de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging is celebrating its 25th anniversary! For the celebration, the center created a three-part timeline highlighting the life and legacy of the center’s namesake, Dr. Rheba de Tornyay. The celebration is in partnership with Era Living. View the timeline below:

Dr. Rheba de Tornyay's life and legacy highlights, 1926–1975

Dr. Rheba de Tornyay's life and legacy highlights, 1972–1995

Dr. Rheba de Tornyay's life and legacy highlights, 1996–present

View the three-part timeline as a PDF.

Scholar Spotlight: Tedra Hamel

Tedra Hamel

Tedra “Teddi” Hamel is an Accelerated Bachelor’s in Nursing Science student and the de Tornyay Center’s 2022–2023 Myrene C. McAninch Undergraduate Scholar. Her project is “Understanding Age-Related Psychological Changes: A Secondary Data Analysis.” Her faculty mentor is Dr. Basia Belza.

Why did you choose nursing?

Coming from a background in outdoor education, I am used to working with a group of 10 students for four or eight weeks. It’s a life-changing experience for those students, but it’s a small population to work with. I wanted my next profession to be more accessible to more people. I hope to work in the ER at some point. The ER is a place where you serve anyone and everyone – people don’t have to be healthy enough to go on a backpacking trip. So it’s about giving my energy and resources to more people instead of just 10 at a time.

What made you want to do research?

I come from a liberal arts background. My BA was in history and I had to do a thesis for graduation. I did a full year of research during my senior year of undergrad. I feel like doing research helps you delve into the issues of a field in a way that you might not fully get if you’re just working.

Could you briefly describe your project with the de Tornyay Center?

My project will be on the psychological changes that are self-identified in older adults, using the Engaging with Aging framework initially developed by Doris Carnevali.

The main framework of Engaging with Aging is identifying coping mechanisms and adaptations that older people are already using.

I’ll be analyzing the transcripts that have already been collected and looking for broad themes of psychological changes with the hope of identifying strategies and resources that older adults already use themselves to get through those challenges and changes. Knowing these adaptations can be very helpful for those that work with older adults.

What sort of psychological changes are you looking for in the transcripts?

What I’ve seen is that a lot of it is changes in emotional feelings, or how emotions are expressed, or all of a sudden they’re feeling a lot of sadness or feeling less emotion. So, how their psychological understanding of themselves and their feelings change over time.

Why is this research important to do?

I like this project based on the fact that we’re hearing older adults’ voices on how they are experiencing aging, instead of just applying blanket techniques, or band-aids, or what we think is right.

I know the Engaging with Aging research is informing providers on good ways to support older folks in their own self-identified strengths and adaptations versus just applying something outside of them.

What interests you about healthy aging?

I was young when three of my four grandparents died, but my mom’s mom lived until 2019. She had dementia for the last seven years of her life, and seeing her go through that and seeing my mom support her was eye-opening. Our society doesn’t have good solutions or good structures in place for everyone that has to go through aging. I think that sparked my care and passion for it.

Then, the last few years I’ve been working in rural health in Eastern Washington as a medical assistant and also an EMT, and there’s so many people in the older population that just don’t have the resources. It’s really hard to live out there, and so the EMS system is used a lot to support them. If they fall at home, they’ll call 911 and then the EMTs get sent out there to help them get up.

There’s only 12 beds in the local assisted living facility and there’s always a year-long wait list. So people tough it out at home, even though that area receives up to four feet of snow every winter. It was a really interesting place to get introduced to aging at home because a rural place is a totally different ball game than the city. So I got curious about how we help folks age gracefully in our society.

What are your plans after graduation?

I do want to get ER experience here in the city. I want to be a flight nurse at some point in the future. That environment really suits my skill set but that would allow for a lot of other work too. I could see myself being a clinical nurse in my small community in Eastern Washington. That position is a really cool combination of nursing skills. You set up flu vaccine clinics at the local assisted living centers, as well as being the nurse at the local urgent care, etc. You end up working with the whole population. But mostly I’m planning to graduate and probably work in a hospital for a few years to get experience.

Scholar Spotlight: Dariga Tugan

Dariga Tugan

Dariga Tugan is an ABSN student and one of the de Tornyay Center’s 2022–2023 Healthy Aging Undergraduate Scholars. Her project is “A descriptive analysis of variability in exercise (VO2 Max) to address differences in physical function and alleviation of symptoms in older adults living with HIV.” Her faculty mentor is Dr. Allison Webel.

Why did you choose nursing?

I chose nursing because it’s an interesting blend of arts and sciences where you get to tailor your care to the patient’s needs. I wanted to master the art of spreading love during times of fear and uncertainty in people’s lives. Spreading joy, helping people heal and understanding the human body with its interactions in medicine is beautiful to me.

What interested you about nursing research?

I absolutely love research. In my free time, I’d often print out articles from PubMed and just read through them. But the reason why I got interested in research was, unfortunately, healthcare is extremely racist. A lot of our research is catered to White males.

The way that our healthcare system works is the therapies, the medications, even the nonpharmacologic therapies are all based on research, which is primarily done on White males. So, entering the space where you can advocate for more diversity and bridge that huge lack of diversity in research, specifically with people of color, was a big interest to me.

What interested you about healthy aging?

I started off my nursing career in a nursing home around 2020. I became passionate about alleviating suffering for those during the final stages of their lives because oftentimes I was the last person that patients would see as they passed. The reason for this is our facility didn’t allow any visitors during the height of the pandemic, and I began to ask myself questions. How do I utilize my privilege of being the last person they see to ensure that they are suffering less? Is restricting access to seeing their family really benefiting or keeping older adults safe in the pandemic?

I would see how this nursing home specifically would charge patients $15,000 a month for subpar care. I got really interested in brainstorming new ideas and solutions to address healthy aging and the gerontology populations. It was these ideas that drew me to join the honors route for the BSN program to better understand and create awareness around the need for quality nursing homes, especially for the people who can’t afford them.

Could you briefly describe your project?

It’s a descriptive analysis of variability and exercise to address differences in physical health, aka the VO2 max, in older adults living with HIV. VO2 max is a measure of cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance based on the maximal oxygen consumption of individuals in a defined exercise protocol.

There’s a myriad of research surrounding VO2 max in older adults, and it’s actually the strongest independent predictor of future life expectancy in both healthy individuals and individuals with cardiorespiratory disease.

We have a lot of studies on VO2 max and exercise in older adults, as well as exercise in older adults living with HIV, and VO2 max and HIV specifically. But my study would be addressing the gaps in our knowledge. Specifically, the data will be surveyed using VO2 max at baseline and accelerometry at baseline between decades of people in their 50s, 60s and 70s.

A lot of these studies also do not focus on older adults with HIV, so data that compares the age groups would be of utmost importance.

I did a literature review and there’s a call for action to have better definitions and studies on interventions that can improve physical function and VO2 max in HIV-infected patients. I think that these data that I analyze can inform and empower older adults living with HIV to engage in strategies to improve their physical function.

What are your plans after graduation?

I plan on working in ICU, but I am dual enrolled in a post-baccalaureate premed program right now, so I’m applying to medical school in October. I love pharmacology and pathophysiology. I think that becoming an ICU nurse and then going to medical school will allow me to study more pathophysiology, but also bring an interesting nursing perspective, which is holistic.

Is there anything else you want to share?

I’m an immigrant from Almaty, Kazakhstan, and not many people know what Kazakhstan is. But it is the ninth biggest country in the world. It was a part of the Soviet Union, so they speak Russian there. It has a huge Russian culture. A lot of the background is also Muslim. So you have the Muslim culture, the Russian culture and our own Kazak culture, which is a nomadic culture, which is beautiful because you have such an intersection of so many different personalities and viewpoints.

It’s allowed me to be diverse in my own thinking and the way I approach people and solutions. My own family is Christian. Balancing my relatives being Muslim and then my own Christian family, it’s all balanced like the yin and yang of life. I love being an immigrant, and I like being from Kazakhstan.

Article correction: The original article mentioned a lack of women in research before 1976. That reference has been removed because clinical trials before that date included women.

Congratulations to our 2022-2023 Healthy Aging Scholars!

The de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging is pleased to announce the 2022–2023 Healthy Aging Scholarship recipients.

Please join us in congratulating these exceptional scholars and their faculty mentors!

PhD research scholarships

Emily Ahrens

Scholarship: Myrene C. McAninch Doctoral Scholar

Topic: Fidelity of the ABCDEF bundle for patients with language barriers

Faculty mentor: Hilaire Thompson, PhD, RN, ARNP, CNRN, AGACNP-BC, FAAN

Karl Cristie Figuracion

Scholarship: Healthy Aging Doctoral Scholar

Topic: Environmental enrichment and cortical changes among brain tumor survivors

Faculty mentor: Hilaire Thompson, PhD, RN, ARNP, CNRN, AGACNP-BC, FAAN

Kuan-Ching Wu

Scholarship: Healthy Aging Doctoral Scholar

Topic: A theoretical framework for urinary tract infection prevention and management in community-dwelling older persons with dementia

Faculty mentor: Oleg Zaslavsky, PhD, MHA, RN

Undergraduate research scholarships

Tedra Hamel

Scholarship: Myrene C. McAninch Undergraduate Scholar

Topic: Understanding age-related physiological changes: a secondary analysis

Faculty mentor: Basia Belza, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA

Esther Mwaniki

Scholarship: Germaine Krysan Undergraduate Scholar

Topic: Examining symptoms of post-intensive care syndrome in older intensive care unit survivors with end-stage renal disease

Faculty mentor: Maya Elias, PhD, MA, RN

Dariga Tugan

Scholarship: Healthy Aging Undergraduate Scholar

Topic: A descriptive analysis of variability in exercise (VO2 Max) to address differences in physical function and alleviation of symptoms in older adults living with HIV

Faculty mentor: Allison Webel, RN, PhD, FAAN

Read the Center’s 2021 – 2022 Annual Report

Curious what the center has been up to in the past academic year? Read the de Tornyay Center’s 2021–2022 Annual Report.