Winter 2025 | Accomplishments
Celebrating the accomplishments of Gator Nursing faculty, staff, and students.
FACULTY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Assistant Professor Lakeshia Cousin, PhD, APRN, AGPCNP-BC, was appointed assistant director of community outreach and engagement with the UF Health Cancer Center. Cousin will conduct research, education, and outreach activities that meet the needs of residents. One of her main roles will be to serve as the clinic director for the center’s Mobile Cancer Screening Connector. Cousin also recently presented her study, “Grateful strides toward spiritual well-being and exercise self-efficacy for Black breast cancer survivors,” at the American Association of Cancer Research Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved.

Assistant Professor Staja Booker, PhD, RN, was selected as a 2024 American Academy of Nursing Fellow. An induction ceremony was held Nov. 2 during the AAN annual Health Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. Booker also recently published an opinion piece in STAT, a news site covering health, medicine, and the life sciences. Booker’s piece, “When Life Mirrors Research: What a Fall on the Ice Taught Me about being Black and in Pain,” explores her physical trauma and how it reflected her research findings on chronic pain outcomes of underrepresented populations.

Assistant Professor Tamara Macieira, PhD, RN, was presented with the 2024 FLOin Award for Nursing Informatics by the Nursing Consortium of Florida Inc. Through her works, she is harmonizing nursing care plan data elements with a widely used data model, with implications for the global health care and informatics community.

UF College of Nursing Dean and UF Health System Chief Nurse Executive Shakira Henderson, PhD, DNP, MS, MPH, EMBA, IBCLC, RNC-NIC, has been appointed to several boards and committees including: U.S. Center for SafeSport Board of Directors, Synova Executive Advisory Board, UF Health Shands Community Board, UF Health Corp Quality Committee, UF Presidential Search Committee, ACCESS Task Force for maternal child health, and the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative’s Obstetric Hemorrhage Initiative Advisory Group.

Assistant Professor Hwayoung Cho, PhD, RN, with Yiyang Liu of the College of Public Health and Health Professions, received a $683,625 NIH grant for a three-year study into developing an HIV risk prediction model that can detect women with a higher risk of HIV and translating it into a clinical decision support platform integrated into an electronic health record system. Cho also was awarded an NIH career development award of more than $500,000 for her research project, “Disparities in Risk of Dementia among People Living with HIV using Real-World Data.”
Clinical Assistant Professor Michael Bumbach, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, RN; Associate Professor, Dorothy M. Smith Endowed Chair and Director Of Florida Blue Center For Healthcare Quality Jane Carrington, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAMIA; Associate Dean For Academic Affairs-Graduate Clinical Education & Clinical Professor Rene Love, PhD, DNP, PMHNP-BC, FNAP, FAANP, FAAN, Assistant Professor Raga Bjarnadottir, PhD, MPH; Assistant Professor Hwayoung Cho, PhD, RN; and R. Murray And Annabel Davis Jenks Endowed Professor Gail Keenan, PhD, RN, FAAN, published an article entitled “The use of artificial intelligence for graduate nursing education: An educational evaluation” in the most recent Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Maymi, Love, and Carrington, along with recent DNP graduate Amanda Vickers also represented the College of Nursing at this year’s International Council of Nurses NP/APN Network Conference in Aberdeen, Scotland.

The latest study by Associate Professor Lisiane Pruinelli, PhD, MS, RN, FAMIA, uses AI to predict which breast cancer patients are most at risk for developing chronic pain. It was published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship. She was featured in a Healio news Q&A session for this research.

Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs — Undergraduate Education and Clinical Associate Professor Karen Reed, MSN, DHSc, RN, CNE, CNL, CRRN, received the Nurse Educator of the Year Award from the Association of Rehabilitation Nursing during its annual conference in San Antonio.

Clinical Assistant Professor Bryce Catarelli, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, and UF Health’s Jamie Dees had their demonstration project manuscript published recently in Oncology Nursing Forum. The project was part of the initial round of collaborative demonstration projects funded by the College of Nursing and UF Health in 2023. Catarelli was also elected to the Florida Nurse Practitioner Network board as their membership director.

Assistant Professor Ellen Terry, PhD, was named the coordinator of the BSN Honors Program.

Clinical Lecturer Laura Gardner, MSN, RN, recently passed her Certified Nursing Educator exam through the National League for Nursing.

Clinical Associate Professor Christina Bricker, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, FAHA, co-authored an E-learning module for the American Heart Association’s Professional Education Hub.

Ann Horgas, PhD, RN, FGSA, FAAN, was named the college’s permanent executive associate dean. Horgas was also appointed to the board of directors for Oak Hammock at the University of Florida by interim UF President Kent Fuchs.
STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Courtney Rodriguez-Cayro‘s DNP graduate project recently won a $20,000 UF grant. The project showed proper oral care may lower pneumonia risk in all patients. The 2024 W. Martin Smith Interdisciplinary Patient Safety Award will allow the research to continue and may set new hospital standards.

PhD students Magali Rezende de Carvalho and Hyehwan Yang were selected as Jonas Scholars for the 2024-2026 cohort by Jonas Nursing and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. They are among only 60 scholars selected from across the nation.

PhD candidates Alexandria Carey and Mendy Dunn presented their project, “Graduate Nurse Research Tech Tour,” at the 2024 Graduate Nursing Student Academy Conference in Washington, D.C. Their pilot project, part of the AACN’s GNSA Digital Innovators program, aims to enhance graduate nursing students’ engagement with research resources like HiPerGator and GatorTron, while collaborating with Apple Distinguished Educators to develop digital innovation skills.