Professor Julie Barroso, PhD, RN, ANP, FNAP, FAAN, has been named to the Julia Eleanor Blair Chenault Endowed Chair of Nursing at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.
Barroso, who joined VUSN in 2020, is a distinguished nurse scientist whose research focuses on people living with HIV and long-term survivorship.
“Julie Barroso’s life work is helping people with HIV/AIDS. Her research into HIV-related fatigue and the stigma of living with HIV is significant,” said Linda D. Norman, DSN, FAAN, VUSN dean and the Valere Potter Menefee Professor of Nursing. “I am pleased that she has been named to an endowed chair and look forward to her continued contributions to nursing science as well as VUSN’s research priorities.”
Endowed chairs are the highest honor a university can bestow upon its faculty. They are presented to distinguished scholars both as recognition of their scholarship and as support for the faculty member’s research. University leaders cite them as key to recruiting and retaining exceptional faculty.
Barroso said she was thrilled to receive the recognition from Vanderbilt. “This will allow me to continue my research on topics related to HIV infection and to expand my research in the area of COVID-19 infection, specifically those suffering from Long COVID (the long term effects of COVID-19, also known as chronic COVID syndrome or long-haul COVID),” she said. “It will also give me the opportunity to mentor students who are interested in these areas.”
Barroso has a history of more than two decades of research funding, including serving as principal investigator or co-investigator on multiple National Institutes of Health grants. She is also a qualitative methodologist. The HIV-Related Fatigue Scale, which she created, has become the benchmark used to measure fatigue for those with HIV, estimated to affect up to 60 percent of patients. She has published frequently in peer and top-tier multidisciplinary and nursing journals, and her co-authored Handbook of Synthesizing Qualitative Research is consider a seminal work.
At VUSN, she teaches in the PhD program and mentors doctoral students. She has received awards for her mentoring and teaching, including the Outstanding PhD Faculty Member from Duke University School of Nursing.
Barroso joined Vanderbilt from the Medical University of South Carolina, College of Nursing, where she was department chair and associate dean of faculty. In addition to being professor (with tenure) at MUSC, she was also a professor at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies and the Duke University School of Nursing. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and designated a Distinguished Professor by the National Academics of Practice in Nursing.
The Florida native earned her bachelor of science in nursing from Florida State University and her master of science from the University of South Florida. She received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.
Barroso will be formally recognized at an endowed chair celebration held by the university at a future date.