After nearly 40 years as an educator, assistant professor Vickie Southall (MSN ’85), currently the School’s longest serving faculty member, has retired.

Since her arrival in 1985, Vickie taught legions of nursing students during their public and community health clinical rotations at varied sites across her Louisa, Va., hometown. Vickie, who prepared nursing students to deploy COVID-19 vaccines across the pandemic, has also been a key Virginia Association of School Nurses (VASN) leader who championed the importance of having a school nurse in every Virginia school, relied upon by legislators, VASN leaders, and the media. Winner of a 2019 UVA Excellence in Public Service Award and repeatedly recognized by the Virginia Nurses Association, Vickie’s work informed Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 Recovery, Redesign, and Restart Task Force, and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax’s Racial Disparities Task Force.

As an educator, she validated her students’ skills, celebrated their strengths, and infused those around her with a joy of learning, serving, and connecting

Patricia “Patti” Rilee St. Clair (DIPLO ’57) received the 2020 Riverside Foundation Citizen of the Year award from Riverside Health System for philanthropic service. “Patti has channeled her lifetime of service to benefit those most in need wherever the opportunity presented itself,” Riverside Health said in a statement. Patti credits her nursing education as the foundation for her wide-ranging career and lifelong interest in health and health-related causes, including women’s cancer and heart health. A long-time supporter of UVA and the School of Nursing, Patti lives in Williamsburg, VA. 

Cynthia “Cindy” Howell Worthy (BSN ’75), of Rocky Mount, NC, was one of 20 North Carolinians to receive the 2023 Medallion Award for Volunteer Service for her extraordinary work to support United Community Ministries. Conferred by Gov. Roy Cooper at state capitol, the award is the state’s highest accolade for volunteerism.

Thanks to Carol Lynn Maxwell-Thompson (MSN ’84), of Charlottesville, VA (pictured with Adele Kofler, lead CPR instructor for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad (CARS), the School donated equipment to support training efforts led by CARS in the community. The contribution included 11 adult and 12 infant training mannequins as well as essential supplies such as masks, and underscores the School’s commitment to CARS and its mission to promote safety and preparedness. 

Kluge-Schakat Associate Professor of Compassionate Care Virginia T. LeBaron (BSN ’96), of Charlottesville, VA, published her second book, Caring in Context: An Ethnography of Cancer Nursing in India (Routledge Press). Virginia, who, in 2021, earned a $3.4 million NIH/NINR grant to create, deploy, and test a smart home health monitoring system for cancer patients and family caregivers, is also a Moore Foundation Fellow, and, with her team, created “CommSense,” a smartwatch programmed to record, assess, and improve clinicians’ conversations with patients.

Capt. Jenny Sigel Burkett (BSN ’97) assumed command of U.S. Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command at Camp Pendleton in August 2023, the first Nurse Corps officer ever to command the hospital. Jenny lives in Oceanside, CA, with her husband, C. Allen Burkett Jr., and their children Emma, Lizbeth, and Clarence.

Elizabeth "Betsy" Moomaw Peyton (BSN ’98), founder of UVA Health-funded WellAWARE, was featured in UVA Today for her novel home visiting program that offers personalized care and clients’ practical challenges.

Pediatric nurse practitioner Margaret “Margie” McHale Kuczkowski (BSN ’99, MSN ’06), of Falls Church, VA, co-founded a new company, NEOwell. As parents of children who spent time in neonatal intensive care units (NICU), Margie and her business partner bridge gaps in care before, during, and after a NICU stay—including preparation, admission, duration, discharge, and more. Nurse-founded and nurse-led, NEOwell offers NICU families education, support, and guidance. 

Critical-care nurse practitioner and DNPs of Color founder Danielle McCamey (BSN ’03), of Baltimore, MD, earned the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ 2024 Visionary Leadership Award. Co-creator of the Doctoral Nurses Collaborative, and Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing assistant dean for strategic partnerships, Danielle works to unite DNP- and PhD-prepared nurses across healthcare systems, providing mentoring, promoting evidence-based practice, and amplilfying nursing scholarship.

Candace Burton (BSN ’05), of Las Vegas, NV, was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing at a Washington, D.C. ceremony in late 2023.

Candace, an associate professor, violence and trauma expert, and director of doctoral education at the University of Nevada’s School of Nursing, is a nurse scientist whose research focuses on stress and trauma, particularly in interpersonal relationships and within the context of health disparities. 

Erica Stephenson (BSN ’11), of Raleigh, NC, and husband Caleb welcomed daughter Isabel Charlotte Stephenson on Sept. 27, 2023.

Jeanel G. Little (MSN ’18, DNP ’19), of Crozet, VA, shared insights from across her nursing career with 5^th and 6^th grade students at Walker Upper Elementary School in Charlottesville as part of a Black History Month program. A critical care nurse at UVA Health, Jeanel joined the School’s faculty as the adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner specialty coordinator. 

Maj. Qaashuntae “Q” Wright (DNP ’23), of Fairfield, CA, an ICU nurse at Davis Grant Medical Center, published an article, “Utilizing a tailored approach to standardized screening of health-related social needs,” based on her final scholarly project at UVA, in the Journal of Nursing Care Quality.

In the paper, Q analyzed the deployment and impact of a social needs screening tool in a dialysis clinic, which helped clinicians identify and address more than twice as many unmet social needs among patients. As a result of Q’s work, the Core 5 tool was deployed across all 12 of UVA Health’s dialysis clinics.