The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing is proud to announce that renowned philanthropist and long-time Texas Nursing supporter Luci Baines Johnson has been selected to be inducted as an honorary fellow into the American Academy of Nursing for 2025.
She will be inducted along with more than 200 highly distinguished nurse leaders from across the globe during the AAN Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 18, 2025.
Johnson received this recognized in part due to her determination to keep the profession of nursing a priority for legislators and partners in the business and health care community.
She has helped to create a strong foundation for many of the advances of the nursing profession during the last five decades.
Johnson served on and led the School’s Advisory Council for many years, and has used her own philanthropy to set an example to others through numerous gifts. Johnson also currently serves as the honorary chair on the School’s “What Starts Here” volunteer campaign committee.
She established one of the School’s earliest endowed professorships and an endowed faculty fellowship that has supported more than 30 faculty fellows. Most recently, she gave a matching gift to establish five new graduate fellowships in gerontological nursing. She and her husband, Ian J. Turpin, have endowed graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships that have funded almost 100 nursing students and established the Luci Baines Johnson and Ian J. Turpin Center for Gerontological Nursing.
The many nurses supported by her scholarships and fellowships will impact health care in Texas and across the nation.
The Academy is a policy organization and an honorific society that recognizes nursing's most accomplished leaders in policy, research, practice, administration, and academia to advance equitable solutions to the most complex health care challenges. Academy Fellows hold a wide variety of influential roles in health care in the United States and abroad. Induction into the Fellowship represents more than recognition of one's accomplishments within the nursing profession. Fellows contribute their collective expertise to the Academy, engaging with health leaders nationally and globally to improve health and achieve health equity by impacting policy through nursing leadership, innovation, and science.