Last December, Debbie Poole (MSN ’83), of Neptune Beach, FL, retired from the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Psychiatry in Jacksonville, FL, after a lengthy career as a psychiatric nurse in Virginia and Florida.

Rita Pickler (PhD `90), an endowed professor at Ohio State College of Nursing, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Midwestern Nursing Research Society in the spring of 2020.

Said Rita, a proud member of the Friends of Brodie alumni group: "I am grateful and deeply honored  . . . [and] am particularly honored that I was nominated by colleagues whom I have mentored. I have been privileged in my own career to have received excellent mentoring and collegial support, making this award possible."

Rita is the FloAnn Sours Easton Professor of Child and Adolescent Health in the Martha S. Pitzer Center for Women, Children and Youth and director of the PhD and MS programs at the College of Nursing.

At the National Nursing Ethics Virtual Conference last March, Liz Stokes (BSN ’02) of Washington, D.C., received the 2022 Ethics of Caring Nursing Ethics Leadership Award. Liz is director of the American Nurses Association Center for Ethics and Human Rights and has provided accessible ethics education throughout the pandemic to guide nurses and the public, including through several national print and television campaigns. After earning a law degree, Liz worked as a discipline consultant for the D.C. Board of Nursing, as an adjunct professor at Georgetown School of Nursing, and as a scholar interested in artificial intelligence, medical aid in dying, limited resuscitation, and women’s reproductive health. Currently, she is a PhD student in the nursing ethics program at Duquesne University.

Woodard Clinical Professor of Nursing Richard Westphal (PhD ’04) will present his Stress First Aid and peer support model at Sigma’s International Nursing Research Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, when he delivers his lecture—“Burnout is not the problem; it is a stress injury symptom”—this July.

Jessica Keim-Malpass (MSN ’05, CNL ’08, PhD ’11, CERTI-PNP ’22), of Charlottesville, VA—an associate professor of nursing at UVA and a nurse scientist who studies predictive analytics, precision health, economics, and health regulatory policy—became an acute care pediatric nurse practitioner.

Says Jessica, “I always wanted to come back to clinical practice in some capacity after my program of research was established, and it only strengthened after [husband] Charlie (Malpass, a physician, director of bronchoscopy, and an associate professor of medicine) had leukemia.”

As an acute care PNP, Jessica will begin a part-time practice in pediatric hematology-oncology, which., she says, “makes me a better researcher while my researcher hat and personal experience makes me a better NP.”

Lucas E. Beirne (BSN' 08), of Alexandria, VA, received the 2021 Special Achievement Award from the Federal Reserve Board, where he is a senior counsel in the legal division's banking enforcement group. Lucas also completed a 10-month rotation in the Federal Reserve's Congressional Liaison Office.

The findings of Jane Muir’s (BSN ’12, MSN ’22, PHD ’22) dissertation—“Exploring the direct and indirect costs of nurse burnout for a health care organization”—compelled her to publish a widely-circulated op-ed in STAT News on January 13 titled, “The solution to the wave of nurse resignations? Cold, hard cash.”

Jane’s work concludes that hospitals that invest in robust burnout reduction programs (including hazard pay, bonuses, salary increases, well-being initiatives, and robust opportunities for advancement and leadership) save money and retain nurses. A family nurse practitioner, Jane begins a post-doc at the University of Pennsylvania’s National Clinician Scholars Program this June. 

Karen S. Moss (CNL ’12, PHD ’16) was elected to the 2022 Midwest Nursing Research Society Board of Directors’ nominating committee and received the 2021 Rising Star Award from the American Society for Pain Management Nursing. In 2018, Karen joined the Ohio State University College of Nursing as an assistant professor and, in 2019, earned a joint appointment at the university’s Center for Health Outcomes, Research, Scholarship, and Service in its College of Medicine. A UVA School of Nursing Alumni Award winner and Jonas Nurse Scholar alumna, Moss’s research focuses on improving pain and advance-care planning knowledge for older adults with Alzheimer’s, dementia, and their family caregivers, with a particular focus on African Americans. She has earned funding from the NIH’s National Institute on Aging, the MAYDAY Fund, and the College of Nursing at Ohio State University. 

Anne Scatena (BSN `13) was named Medstar Georgetown Hospital's Nurse of the Year for 2022 last May, and also earned the hospital's Spirit Award Focus for her expertise in case management. Annie is in a new role where she creates discharge protocols for high-risk infants and children in the NICU and pediatric units.

She recently joined the hospital's wellness team to create a healthier workplace. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her family.

Timothy-Keith Schau Earley (BSN ’15, MSN ’20), of Richmond, VA, married Aaron Ledesma at a ceremony in Richmond on Oct. 23, 2021. The union was featured in the Dec. 17 edition of the New York Times' "Vows." Timothy-Keith is a nurse practitioner at the Burn and Reconstructive Centers of America at Chippenham Hospital in Richmond. 

Shares Alex Wolf (DNP `16), a former palliative care nurse practitioner at Augusta Health, Cincinnati-based TriHealth, and UC Health, and formerly a clinical instructor at the School: "I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as an assistant professor at the school of nursing at MGH Institute of Health Professions!"

Alex lives in Boston, MA.

Seok Hyun (Joshua) Gwon (PHD ’16), of Shorewood, WI, received the 2022 Population Health RIIG New/Early Career Investigator Award at the 2022 Midwest Nursing Research Society for his research on an e-cigarette cessation program for young adults. Joshua is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Nursing. 

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Scholarship Program selected Cameron E. Farmer (BSN ’17), of Washington, D.C., for its 2021 award, monies that will help fund Cameron’s doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

PhD candidate Ren Capucao (CNL ’19) earned a Fulbright Scholarship for his dissertation project “Pressed into starched whites: Nursing identity in Filipino American history.”

Capucao has received funding from the Virginia Humanities, the Philippine Nurses Association of Virginia, UVA’s Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, and the Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. Ren’s will continue his study in the Philippines for the 2022-23 academic year. 

LTC Suzanne Cobleigh (MSN ’19, DNP ’20)—officer in charge of U.S. Army medical teams deployed by FEMA and the Department of Defense to assist COVID-overwhelmed hospitals since summer 2021—spoke to President Biden and DOD Secretary Lloyd Austin about her work, the changing nature of COVID, on-the-ground challenges, and the cohesion of her military and civilian teams in Arkansas and Michigan. 

In early 2020, HoChong Gilles (DNP `17), past president of the Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners (VCNP) and a nurse practitioner at the McGuire Department of Veterans' Affairs Medical Center in Midlothian, VA, where she is clinical program manager of hepatology and liver transplant, was honored by the VCNP with its "Excellence in Advocacy" award.

Joseph Byron Clanor (CNL ’21), of Walnut Creek, CA, passed the NCLEX last fall and started a new job in the Cardiovascular ICU at the John Muir Health Concord Medical Center as a critical care nurse in Concord, CA. 

Nurse practitioner Habibah Williams (DNP ’22), of Chesterfield, VA, earned a national collaboration award from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing for her novel weight bias reduction program for healthcare staff called “We Matter.”

Habibah is the lead clinician at Virginia State University’s Student Health Center. 

Kimone Racquel Yolanda Reid (MSN, ’17, DNP ’18) and Gina DeGennaro (MSN ’00, DNP ’11) co-authored “Strategies for Successfully Completing a DNP Final Project,” published in the October 2021 issue of Nursing the Peer-Reviewed Journal of Clinical Excellence.

Kimone is a hospitalist nurse practitioner in Stuart, FL. Gina is an academic director of clinical partnerships, a professor at UVA School of Nursing, and a hematology/oncology acute inpatient care nurse at UVA Health.