News Release

Monday, October 17, 2011

NINR welcomes three new members to its advisory council

The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) announces three new members to the National Advisory Council for Nursing Research (NACNR), the institute’s principal advisory board. Members of the council are drawn from the scientific and lay communities, embodying a diverse perspective from the fields of nursing, public and health policy, law, and economics. NINR, a component of the National Institutes of Health, is the primary federal agency for the support of nursing research.

The NACNR meets three times a year on the NIH campus to provide recommendations on the direction and support of the nursing, biomedical, social, and behavioral research that forms the evidence base for nursing practice. An important role of the council is to conduct a second level of review of grant applications that have been scored by scientific review groups. In addition, the council reviews the Institute's extramural programs and makes recommendations about its intramural research activities.

NINR Director Patricia A. Grady, Ph.D., RN, is pleased to welcome the following new members:

Kenton R. Kaufman, Ph.D., is a professor of biomedical engineering and the W. Hall Wendel, Jr., Musculoskeletal Research Professor at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. He is co-director of the Mayo Clinic’s Biomechanics and Motion Analysis Laboratory, where he has studied the development and application of innovative techniques for the analysis of human movement. His research focuses on in-vivo dynamic assessment of musculoskeletal function and modeling. He is also involved in developing and testing next-generation prosthetics and orthotics. His work is primarily translational and is aimed at improving the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of human musculoskeletal injury and disease. Dr. Kaufman received his Ph.D. in biomechanical engineering from North Dakota State University, Fargo. He is a past president of the American Society of Biomechanics; a founding member and past president of the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society; and a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Courtney H. Lyder, N.D., is the dean of the UCLA School of Nursing, professor of nursing, medicine and public health, and executive director of the UCLA Health System and Patient Safety Institute. He previously served in progressive leadership positions at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. He is the first African American dean at UCLA and the first minority male to be dean of a school of nursing in the United States. Dr. Lyder's interests include care of vulnerable and minority elder adults with a particular emphasis on chronic care issues, wound care nursing, and health services research. He has studied the use of innovative technologies to help elders "age in place," and has developed numerous innovative training programs in gerontology. His scholarship helped influence the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to change regulations related to the care of the elderly in the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes. He received his M.S. and N.D. degrees in geriatric nursing from Rush University, Chicago. He is the author of over 195 journal articles, books, book chapters, and abstracts.

James A. Tulsky, M.D., is director of the Center for Palliative Care and a professor in the schools of medicine and nursing at Duke University, Durham, N.C. He also directs the NINR-funded Duke Center for Self-Management in Life-Limiting Illness. Dr. Tulsky received his M.D. from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was also a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. He was in the first cohort of the Project on Death in America Soros Faculty Scholars. He is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physicians Faculty Scholars Award, a Veterans Administration Health Services Research Career Development Award, the 2002 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the 2006 Award for Research Excellence from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. His current research focuses on enhancing communication between oncologists and patients with advanced cancer, and he is widely published in the areas of provider-patient communication and quality of life at the end of life.

NINR supports basic and clinical research that develops the knowledge to build the scientific foundation for clinical practice, prevent disease and disability, manage and eliminate symptoms caused by illness, and enhance end-of-life and palliative care. For more information about NINR, visit the website at www.ninr.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

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