VUSN faculty members Mary Dietrich, PhD, MS, and Karen Hande, DNP, ANP-BC, RN, were each recently awarded with the Colleen Conway-Welch Award. The award recognizes a faculty member in both the PhD program and DNP program who make significant contributions to student learning in their courses and/or encourage the student as their adviser or mentor by exhibiting knowledge of content area, modeling of professional behaviors in the development of their scholarly activity and encouragement of scholarship. The awards were presented by Dean Linda Norman, DSN, RN, Valere Potter Menefee Professor of Nursing, and Dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.
Mary Dietrich received the award for her work in the PhD program. She is a co-investigator and a consultant on a diverse array of funded research studies originating from faculty in the Schools of Nursing and Medicine. Her own interests revolve around the use and development of statistical methods that bridge the psychological, sociologic and biological sciences, in particular systems-level and longitudinal methods.
Karen Hande received the award for her work in the DNP program. She is the DNP Integrative Course Series coordinator. Her teaching focuses on the application of evidence-based practice and the DNP project. Hande’s current scholarship is implementing a mindfulness curriculum. Karen is an adult health nurse practitioner, with a specialty for caring for chronically ill patients. She practices at the Vanderbilt- Ingram Cancer Center in the Supportive Care Program.