School Rankings, Faculty Updates, DAISY Awards, Alumni Mentorship Program
Notable achievements of our faculty, students, and alumni, plus the purpose-built premises of the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing are officially opened.
In 2024, the UC Irvine Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing’s undergraduate bachelor’s in nursing science program advanced from #52 to #26 in the U.S. News and World Report’s national rankings.
Faculty Recognition
Dean Mark Lazenby has been selected as an American Council on Education Fellow 2025.
Professor Nancy Pike, founding associate dean for research, and Associate Professor Yuqing Guo were inducted as Fellows of the Western Academy of Nurses (WAN) in 2025.
Professor Pike is lead author of a scientific statement on the state of nursing wellbeing published by the Journal of the American Heart Association in January 2025. Pike is Chair of the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing.
Professor Pike also received the Western Institute of Nursing’s (WIN) Distinguished Research Lectureship Award 2025.
Associate Professor Dawn Bounds has received a five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Institute on Drug
Abuse to evaluate the efficacy of the Garnering Resilience in Traumatized Youth and Families (G.R.I.T.) program.
Professor E. Alison Holman is co-author with Dana Rose Garfin and Roxanne Cohen Silver of It matters what you see: Graphic media images of war and terror may amplify distress in the July 25, 2024 Proceedings of the National Academies of Science of the United States (PNAS).
Assistant Professor Nakia Best will lead a National Institutes of Health-funded project: Associations of Child Health Needs, School Nurse Health Services and Social Determinants of Health.
Assistant Clinical Professor Shelley Burke published The Unsung Heroes: Nurses!, honoring the trailblazing stories of diverse nurses and living legends, including her own story of immigrating from Guyana to the U.S. (White Coats Publishing, 2025).
Nursing Philosophy, of which Professor Miriam Bender is co-editor in chief, is now a Q1 nursing journal as ranked by Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2024. Bender is the founding director of the Center for Nursing Philosophy at UC Irvine.
In 2024, the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing presented its inaugural DAISY awards for exceptional nurses to Philippe Pierre Trajano, a dedicated clinical nurse at UCI Medical Center, for Extraordinary Nurse Educator, and Maryam Adewunmi, a recent MEPN graduate, for Extraordinary Student.
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Dr. Claudia M. Davis, honored by the California State Senate
Dr. Claudia M. Davis, associate professor of teaching, has been honored by the California State Senate as a 2025 Woman of Distinction and finalist for Woman of the Year, selected by Senator Eloise Gomez Reyes 29th District. Dr. Davis is a nationally recognized breast cancer researcher whose work focuses on improving survival outcomes among diverse populations.
Alumni Mentorship Program
The College of Health Sciences mentorship program has proved a resounding success, supporting over 300 participants to date. These include 30 nursing alumni professionals, who have used their experience to guide 39 nursing student mentees.
Alumni Chad Gornay, Taryn Tanner and Katie Teixeira on the nursing panel at the annual alumni mentorship program event in 2024.
