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The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) has named Connell School of Nursing Dean and Professor Susan Gennaro to its National Advisory Council for Nursing Research (NACNR), the institute's principal advisory board.
Members of the council are drawn from the scientific and lay communities, embodying a diverse perspective from the fields of nursing, public and health policy, law and economics. NINR, a component of the National Institutes of Health, is the primary federal agency for the support of nursing research.
Gennaro, an internationally noted perinatal nurse researcher who became CSON dean in 2008, is currently investigating risk patterns for preterm delivery in US women. Her research has been funded by the NIH for more than 20 years. She is the editor of Sigma Theta Tau's Journal of Nursing Scholarship and is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She was honored by her alma mater, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, with a Visionary Leader Award in 2010, and received Outstanding Nurse Researcher and Distinguished Service awards from the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.
The NACNR provides recommendations on the direction and support of the nursing, biomedical, social, and behavioral research that forms the evidence base for nursing practice. An important role of the council is to conduct a second level of review of grant applications that have been scored by scientific review groups. In addition, the council reviews the institute's extramural programs and makes recommendations about its intramural research activities.
NINR supports basic and clinical research that develops the knowledge to build the scientific foundation for clinical practice, prevent disease and disability, manage and eliminate symptoms caused by illness, and enhance end-of-life and palliative care.