Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program
Columbia University School of Nursing received funding approval for four $20,000 scholarships from the Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program, an initiative of the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence. Designed to improve nurse recruitment and retention, increase ethnic and racial diversity among the nursing workforce, advance innovative practice models, and improve nursing practice settings, this program will support 50 scholars by 2012 with a goal of reaching 100 nationwide. Mr. Donald Jonas adds, "we are very pleased to support the new Jonas Scholars at Columbia and welcome them to join their distinguished colleagues Annie Rohan and Shanelle Nelson". The following incoming and current students will receive $20,000 each over two years.
Manuel C. Co Jr., is director of Nursing Informatics at NYU Hospitals. He holds a MS degree from Hunter College and a master's degree in Clinical Epidemiology & Health Services Research from Weill Cornell Graduate School. He will work with Suzanne Bakken, DNSc, for his dissertation in nursing informatics with a focus on underserved populations.
May Uchida is a MSN graduate from the nurse practitioner program of Yale University, with a specialty in geriatric nursing. Her research interest is in gerontology nursing workforce shortage issues, specifically related to factors for recruiting, education, and retention of advanced practice nurses. Her advisor is Patricia Stone, PhD, herself an expert in nursing workforce issues. Olivia Velez, holds bachelors' and master's degrees in computer science (Mount Holyoke), and a master's in public health (Columbia). She is now completing her 2nd year in the PhD program in Nursing with an interest in informatics related to mobile health messaging as a health promotion intervention for underserved communities, both in the US and in Africa. Dr Bakken is her advisor. Nowai Keleekai, holds a BSN from Ohio State University. She is the student recruiter for TRANSIT, CUSON's HRSA-funded program led by Nancy Reame, PhD, to recruit and retain underserved minority students into health disparities research careers. She has been accepted into CUSON's highly competitive pre-doctoral fellowship program, and her dissertation will focus on mental health needs of HIV-infected prisoners, part of a larger project funded by the NIH grant of PI Elaine Larson, PhD.