Emerging Leaders

In the delivery room, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) Sheena Warner, MS, CRNA, APN, often stood with patients during hard moments. She learned to read the subtle signs of a patient in trouble, but she also saw how easily maternal risks could go unrecognized or unshared among care teams.

Those moments drove home the reality that maternal safety depends too much on individual intuition and not enough on evidence-driven systems, leading to an important and career-shifting question: “What if we had tools to see risks sooner, and communicate them better?”

Determined to find answers, Warner entered the School of Nursing’s PhD program. With guidance from advisor Rasheeta Chandler, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, and support from the American Association of Anesthesiologists Foundation, she now studies how AI can complement clinical judgment and help obstetric anesthesia teams identify and share risk earlier. She plans to continue her research after graduation while continuing to practice as an obstetric CRNA.

Warner’s story reflects the vision Associate Professor Nicholas Giordano, PhD, RN, FAAN, has for the PhD program as its co-director.

“Our vision is simple but ambitious,” he says. “We aim to prepare nurse researchers to build careers capable of revolutionizing health care and improving health outcomes through novel research methodologies and advanced technologies.”

Professor Emerita Sandi Dunbar, PhD, RN, FPCNA, FAHA, FAAN, helped start the PhD program in 1999 and has delighted in its role in the school’s research enterprise. She highlights the valuable assistance and expertise PhD students bring to faculty research, their visibility at professional conferences, and the external funding they attract. To date, 35 students have earned support from the National Institutes of Health, bringing in more than $2.5 million.

Now home to more than 30 students and 100 alumni, the program continues to grow — a welcome reality in the face of a national nursing faculty shortage, Giordano says. 

With the recent addition of a PhD track in nursing and AI, the first of its kind in the U.S., the school is also preparing emerging scholar-leaders for what’s next in research.

Dunbar says the synergy between the research and PhD programs has strengthened both, but the greatest impact is felt elsewhere. “It has addressed many of health care’s most pressing problems and, in doing so, improved patient outcomes and quality of life,” she says.