Carter\u2019s background is in emergency department nursing and she is passionate about how research can improve patient safety and outcomes. She has received national grant funding to study the dissemination and implementation of infection prevention and antibiotic resistance practices.<\/p>\n \u201cI was drawn by UConn School of Nursing\u2019s strong reputation, and its commitment to and successful track record of public service and quality research,\u201d Carter<\/a> says. \u201cStudents and faculty alike esteem the School for its scholarly expertise, nurturing atmosphere, and tremendous opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from New York University, before going on to earn her MPhil and Ph.D. at Columbia University. In 2014, she was the first to enter a jointly appointed research position at Columbia University School of Nursing and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, seeking to connect scholarly efforts across the institutions.<\/p>\n Seeing her potential, UConn has accepted Carter into its Pre-K Scholar Career Development Award Program<\/a>. The two-year program is designed to equip junior faculty with the knowledge of how to effectively apply for an NIH Research Career Development Award \u2014 also known as a K award. The program\u2019s long-term goals are to increase the pipeline of researchers applying for K awards and help them become leaders in clinical and translational science.<\/p>\n Christine Tocchi<\/strong><\/p>\n Tocchi<\/a> has more than 20 years of experience in the education of gerontological nursing students and providing care to older adults. She has spent the past six years as an assistant professor at Duke University.<\/p>\n Tocchi received her bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing from St. Anselm College, and her master\u2019s degree and Ph.D. in nursing from Yale University. Her postdoctoral fellowship was at the New York University College of Nursing.<\/p>\n Tocchi\u2019s research and work has focused on frailty prevention in older adults. She co-initiated a primary care home visit program for frail homebound older adults, initiated a Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) program within an acute care hospital, and was a health provider and director of patient care at a long-term care facility.<\/p>\n \u201cI am delighted to be joining the renowned faculty of UConn’s School of Nursing,\u201d Tocchi says. \u201cThe school’s commitment to research, education, and public service is an exemplar of an academic environment supportive of the development of innovative and new nursing knowledge and future nursing leaders to improve health care across settings and populations.\u201d<\/p>\n Gee Su Yang<\/strong><\/p>\n Yang<\/a> completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Florida through an NIH National Research Service Award F32 fellowship. During her time in Florida, she advanced her clinical research knowledge and skills in symptom science, specifically focused on aromatase inhibitor-associated musculoskeletal symptoms in breast cancer survivors.<\/p>\n She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from Seoul National University in South Korea, and her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland School of Nursing.<\/p>\n During her pre-doctoral program, she studied pain and omics discovery methodologies to investigate underlying mechanisms and treatment strategies of various types of pain, such as cancer-related pain, inflammatory pain, neuropathic pain, and musculoskeletal pain, using an animal model.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided to work at the UConn School of Nursing because there are rich research infrastructures, resources, and support for basic, translational, and clinical research, and there are mentors and colleagues to work with in my area of interest,\u201d Yang says. \u201cI am very excited to be a part of the UConn family.\u201d<\/p>\n Judy Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n Brown<\/a> transferred to the School of Nursing from the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources\u2019 Department of Allied Health Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cA move to the School of Nursing is an exciting opportunity for me to learn from and collaborate with qualified practitioners who are mindful of the need for dynamic continuing health care professional education,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI am grateful to be welcomed and look forward to being among the creative faculty who design and lead the successful and highly regarded programs of the School.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown is a certified clinical laboratory specialist in both cytogenetics and molecular biology with a Ph.D. in genetics and genomics. As director of the chromosome core division of the Center for Genome Innovation<\/a> (CGI), she examines chromosome integrity of human-induced pluripotent stem cells created to mimic diseases such as autism, Angelman and Prader Willi syndromes, and psychiatric disorders.<\/p>\n Recognizing a need for individuals with advanced training in genome-based technologies and clinical genetics, Judy developed and serves as director for the Institute for Systems Genomics\u2019 innovative Health Care Genetics Professional Science Master’s Degree Program<\/a>, co-sponsored now by the School of Nursing and the Department of Allied Health Sciences.<\/p>\n Valorie MacKenna<\/strong><\/p>\n MacKenna<\/a> joined the School of Nursing in July as the new director of simulation-based education.<\/p>\n MacKenna came to UConn from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where she was a graduate teaching assistant and received her Ph.D. She graduated from the University of South Florida in 2010 with her bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing and master\u2019s in nursing education and has over a decade of experience in labor\/delivery nursing.<\/p>\n In 2016, MacKenna became a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator and her research focuses on simulation-based learning, debriefing methods with virtual simulation, and nursing education.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m excited to be a part of the team at the School of Nursing and look forward to contributing to the growth of the Clinical Simulation Learning Center<\/a>,\u201d MacKenna says. \u201cI see great opportunities to collaborate with other dedicated educators as we develop the next generation of nurses through experiential learning!\u201d<\/p>\n Follow the UConn School of Nursing on Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, or LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The School of Nursing welcomed three tenure-track faculty members, a new director of simulation-based education, and an associate professor from UConn\u2019s Department of Allied Health Sciences for the Fall 2020 semester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":164051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1877],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2217],"class_list":["post-164044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nur"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 03:24:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/164051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164044"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=164044"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=164044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Carter-Eileen-200x300.jpg\")
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