Mark Lazenby, professor and dean of the UCI Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, officially assumed his role during a virtual welcome ceremony on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2021.

An advanced practice oncology nurse and philosopher, Lazenby brings with him a belief that the profession of nursing is a powerful driver of social transformation, particularly for health equity and climate change and health.

The COVID pandemic has been a profound crisis for everyone, he says. But Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and older adults have borne the brunt of it.

“The health disparities this crisis has put squarely on the front page are not new,” he told an audience of faculty and staff, noting the millions who have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the HIV pandemic began. Read the full text of his address ›

“We must care more than ever about health equity. We must care about Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, about the LGBTQ community, about people with different abilities, about unhoused people, about older adults – about people who, because of the many discriminatory structures of society, are marginalized, and whose health, as a result, has borne the brunt.”

Climate change is a looming crisis for millions living in the Global South, caused by the excesses of those in the Global North, Lazenby says.

“We must live, practice, teach and administrate as if we care for and about Earth. It is our only home.”

About Mark Lazenby

Lazenby follows Founding Dean and Distinguished Professor Adey Nyamathi, who stepped down in December 2021 after a successful five-year term.

A California native, Lazenby began his lifelong pursuit of positive social transformation working as a community organizer with underserved youth in East Los Angeles.

During his time as a philosophy professor, Lazenby witnessed how nurses cared for his dying parents.

“The nurse who cared for my mother profoundly changed my life. She cared about my mother and she cared about my family.”

After that encounter, he decided to change his life’s course and earned his master’s of nursing science from Yale University in 2009. The next year, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the King Hussein Cancer Center in Amman, Jordan, studying the spiritual well-being of cancer patients.

Author, international expert

Lazenby’s beliefs are reflected in his philosophy of nursing project, a trilogy published by Oxford University Press, which presents a new vision for nursing and its place in the world. The books include Caring Matters Most: The Ethical Significance of Nursing (2017), Toward a Better World: The Social Significance of Nursing (2020), and the forthcoming Practicing the Good Life: The Spiritual Significance of Nursing.

As an international expert on psychosocial-spiritual cancer care, Mark has studied the spiritual support of cancer patients from minority religious backgrounds and the implementation of emotional distress screening in routine cancer care, research funded by the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute.

He is on the editorial boards of Palliative and Supportive Care, BMC Palliative and Supportive Care, and Cancer Nursing, and he is a co-editor of two books on psychosocial-spiritual care. He has served on expert panels and as review coordinator for numerous proceedings for the National Academy of Medicine and on study sections for the European Research Council. He is a past president and fellow of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Prior to joining UCI, Dean Lazenby was professor of nursing and philosophy and served as the associate dean for faculty and student affairs at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing from 2019 to 2022.

He was instrumental in expanding the nursing school’s faculty by a third; instituting a faculty development program; establishing the school’s office of diversity, equity, and inclusion; expanding the school’s enrollment management to include holistic admissions and student success; and bringing global nursing into the classroom during the pandemic through a virtual simulation project with five nursing schools from around the world. From 2010 to 2019, he was on the Yale School of Nursing faculty with joint appointments at the Yale Cancer Center, the Yale Divinity School, and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies.

Support the UCI Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing: For more information, to support a future nurse or nurse-led research, please connect to Juliana Goswick, Director of Development at jgoswick@hs.uci.edu.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu