WesternU College of Graduate Nursing receives NIH grant to develop nurse scientists
The first National Institutes of Health grant for Western University of Health Sciences’ College of Graduate Nursing focuses on community health and developing nurse scientists.
WesternU CGN’s Training Community-Engaged Research Teams (T-CERT) program will provide direct one-year educational research training experiences to 80 nurse-scientists over two cohorts, resulting in the creation of a T-CERT Toolkit to increase the reach and impact of this program throughout the nation.
The Principal Investigator is CGN Dean Mary Lopez, PhD, RN, and the co-investigators are WesternU Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Bradley Henson, DDS, PhD, and CGN Associate Professor Lucian O’Connor, PhD. The funding is for $751,639 through the National Institute of Nursing Research over three years.
This research program is designed specifically for nurses and other professionals who want to become nurse scientists. The long-term goal is to empower nurses to become leaders in community-engaged research, ultimately improving patient care and health outcomes through a deeper understanding of factors that influence health.
Lopez is a nurse scientist at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. She asked her network of friends who are nurse scientists to join her on this grant and serve as mentors to these students.
The students will be assigned nurse scientist mentors in Lopez’s network and from Claremont Graduate University. Henson and Lopez will teach the students about research and O’Connor will address social determinants of health. A combination of people within the community and community health workers will be part of an advisory board that reviews the courses and provides feedback.
The students will meet their mentors in the first semester and identify a community to work in and assess the needs in conjunction with the community. Their course will be over at the end of the first year, at the proposal stage. If they want to continue on, CGN has the funds to have them continue into a second year.
The first cohort will run from July 2026 to July 2027. The second cohort will run from July 2027 to 2028. CGN will hold a conference in July 2027, at the end of the first year.
“All our mentors will be here. We will invite the WesternU community to be part of this conference, which is another deliverable,” Lopez said. “We have funds to fly students here. We will have students online throughout the nation.”
“I think two things will mark our success. First, that we have at least 40 students per cohort who participate in online education and write proposals for community based research,” Lopez said. “And secondly, they share their projects with us and with the community to improve the health of the communities they serve. It would be wonderful to have some neighborhood participants come to the conference and tell us how this project impacted their life.”
This proposal was met with incredible enthusiasm, Lopez said, with many of her colleagues eager to be part of this.
“I think nurses always want to help others. We have that natural DNA within us to serve and help. It’s innate in nurses. It motivates them to get doctoral degrees, and to continue to serve in hospitals and clinical settings,” Lopez said. “It’s always within our essence to serve our communities. This is another way we are doing that.”
