The State of Nursing Science: The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing’s Endowed Lectureship Symposium

Speakers 

The LaVerne Gallman Lecture in Nursing presented by Jun J. Mao, M.D., MSCE

Dr. Jun J. Mao is the Chief of the Integrative Medicine Service and the Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as well as a professor of medicine and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is a board-certified family physician and a licensed acupuncturist who combines western and eastern approaches to manage pain and symptoms in cancer patients.

Dr. Mao’s program of research focuses on investigating the effects, mechanisms, and integration of Complementary and Integrative Medicine for symptom management in cancer. He has received peer-reviewed funding from the National Institutes of Health and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute in the U.S. and has published over 250 peer-reviewed research manuscripts in top oncology journals such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, JAMA Oncology, Cancer, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Mao’s research has contributed to the evidence-based growth of acupuncture in cancer care. He is the past president of the Society for Integrative Oncology, an international organization with over 500 members from over 40 countries dedicated to the science and integration of evidence-based complementary approaches in conventional cancer care. He is the Co-President for the Society for Acupuncture Research (SAR), an international research organization to advance the scientific understanding and clinical evidence of acupuncture.

The Jack and Laura Lee Blanton Lecture in Nursing presented by Dean Elizabeth Merwin, PhD, RN, FAAN

Dr. Elizabeth Merwin is the Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) and is the Founding and Executive Director of the University of Arlington, Center for Rural Health and Nursing, supported by a state of Texas legislative appropriation. Previously, Dr. Merwin was the Ann Henshaw Gardiner Distinguished Professor and Executive Vice-Dean at the Duke University School of Nursing from 2012-2019. 

Dr. Merwin is an experienced nursing leader and health services researcher who over the last 30 years has established a research program that aims to improve the health and health status of underserved and vulnerable populations. With consistent funding from NIH and other external agencies, improving access and outcomes of care has been the focus of her research program, particularly for rural, mental health, impoverished and/or minority populations. Previously, she was the Madge M. Jones Professor of Nursing from 2005-2012 and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Virginia where she was the Director of a Rural Health Care Research Center (RHCRC) funded by NINR through a P20 mechanism. Earlier in her career, she was the Co-Director and then Director of a NIMH P50 center on rural mental health. At Duke, she was a member of the CTSA Executive Committee for five years and shared her successful experiences as a research leader through her co-leadership of the Team Science core of the CTSA. She is a methodological expert in the analysis of large secondary data sets and has chaired a number of dissertations using clinical or administrative data.

The George and Diana Sharpe Perinatal Lecture presented by Rita Pickler,  PhD, RN, FAAN

Dr. Rita Pickler is The FloAnn Sours Easton Professor of Child and Adolescent Health at The Ohio State University College of Nursing. She has an educational and research background in high-risk perinatology, neonatology, and pediatrics. 

For over 30 years Dr. Pickler has focused her work on the care of preterm infants and their families as well as on effort to reduce prematurity and improve maternal, child, and family outcomes. She has been funded continuously by National Institutes of Health since 2001 for her interdisciplinary research as PI or Co-I, including two randomized clinical trials testing interventions to improve neurobehavioral outcomes through the use of pattern caregiving experiences. She is currently a co-investigator on a randomized control trial testing an intervention to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes including prematurity in Mexican Hispanic women and on a study examining nursing care reliability in the neonatal intensive care unit. Her most recent NIH application, which is pending funding, focuses on enhancing equity for parent presence and participation in preterm in the neonatal intensive care unit. She is also MPI for a T32 training grant focused on health development across the life span. She has over 180 publications including original research reports, protocol papers, methods papers, reviews, commentaries, and editorials. She has served on numerous research review committees at the National Institutes of Health and on the National Advisory Council for Nursing Research. She has been honored for her research in many ways, including induction into the American Academy of Nursing and the Sigma Theta Tau International Researcher Hall of Fame. She received the Midwest Nursing Research Society 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award and the National Association of Neonatal Nurses 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award. In April 2022, she was named a University Distinguished Scholar at the Ohio State University. She has been an editor at both the Journal of Advanced Nursing and the Journal of Pediatric Health Care. She became the editor of Nursing Research in January 2018.

The LaVerne Gallman Lecture in Nursing presented by Shelli Kesler, PhD

Dr. Shelli Kesler is the Dr. Mary Louise Adams Endowed Professor in Oncology Nursing and director for the Center for Advanced Research Methods at The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing.

Dr. Kesler is a cognitive neuroscientist with expertise in neuroimaging, neuropsychology, biostatistics, machine learning and computer programming. The focus of her research concerns the effects of cancer and its treatments on brain network (connectome) organization. She aims to improve precision health management of cognitive toxicities in patients with non-CNS cancer though connectome-based subtyping and prognosis of cognitive dysfunction. She also examines the relationships between the connectome, cognition, and survival in patients with CNS cancer. She has obtained over $14 million in external grant funding including four National Institutes of Health R01's and the prestigious National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award.