Three UNMC College of Nursing faculty members recently were appointed endowed chairs or professorships in nursing. They include Robin Lally, PhD, Joyce Black, PhD, and Kathleen Hanna, PhD.
“Endowed chairs and professorships enhance scholarship within a college, and we have been incredibly fortunate to benefit from generous donor support of these honors,” said Juliann Sebastian, PhD, dean of the UNMC College of Nursing. “Holding an endowed chair or professorship recognizes the academic and scholarly work of the holder and provides them opportunities to expand that work. This enrichment of the intellectual, scientific and creative work of the college benefits everyone. The awards were very competitive, highlighting the level of talent and accomplishment of our faculty.”
Dr. Sebastian thanked the committee, chaired by Ann Berger, PhD. “This interprofessional committee of esteemed scholars themselves, recruited candidates from within the UNMC College of Nursing and made recommendations to me.”
Dr. Lally was appointed the first holder of the Bertha L. Pankratz Professorship in Nursing. Dr. Lally, interim associate dean of research, has focused her work on women newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Funding sources have included the American Cancer Society. She is co-principal investigator with UNMC physician, Elizabeth Reed, MD, on a grant funded by the National Comprehensive Cancer Center Network/Pfizer to support care for rural women under 50 with breast cancer diagnoses. She is working to determine the effectiveness of this program with rural women and submitted a major National Institutes of Health grant (R01) proposal earlier this year to support the work.
She plans to expand her research to address cancer care disparities in stigmatized and underrepresented populations and to develop outreach strategies.
Dr. Black has been named the Florence Niedfelt Professor in Nursing. Dr. Black is known internationally for her expertise and contributions in the field of pressure injuries. She is particularly well known for developing seminal thinking around deep tissue injuries. She contributed to the original staging work on pressure ulcers in 2010 and has conducted research in the area of pressure ulcer development related to the use of medical devices. Dr. Black has consulted extensively in the U.S. and around the world and has served on the board of directors of the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel since 1998.
Dr. Hanna, director of the PhD program, was reappointed to a second term as the Carol M. Wilson Endowed Chair in Nursing. Her first term as the first holder of the chair began in 2014. Her research focuses on enhancing transitions in self-management of chronic conditions, such as transitions to self-management from parental management for adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. She completed a major National Institutes of Health grant (R01) in 2012 and is developing another R01 to further expand this line of inquiry.
Congratulations to three outstanding faculty at the college of nursing.