Nursing Faculty

Karen Drenkard announced as Acting Divisional Dean of the �鶹��Ƶ School of Nursing

Taylor Thomas — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:59:44 +0000

Karen Drenkard announced as Acting Divisional Dean of the �鶹��Ƶ School of Nursing Taylor Thomas Fri, 03/06/2026 - 11:59

In This Story

Key Takeaways:

Karen Drenkard has been announced as the �鶹��Ƶ School of Nursing Acting Divisional Dean.
Drenkard, a George �鶹��Ƶ School of Nursing alumna (PhD '06), boasts an impressive career as a leader in nursing education and health care innovation across academic, clinical, and organizational settings.
As Acting Divisional Dean, Drenkard's expertise will further the School of Nursing's mission to produce nursing leaders who will contribute to the health of all populations through innovative and impactful research, practice, and service.

Karen Drenkard. Photo provided.

The College of Public Health welcomes Karen Drenkard, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN as its new Acting Divisional Dean of the School of Nursing. A George �鶹��Ƶ alum (PhD ’06), Drenkard brings exceptional leadership, national recognition, and deep expertise across academic nursing, clinical practice, health care innovation, and strategic program development. As President of Drenkard Healthcare Consulting, LLC, she has guided large integrated health care systems, schools of nursing, technology companies, and national organizations in strategic planning, academic–practice partnership development, quality management, and leadership advancement.

"Dr. Drenkard's distinguished career and transformative leadership in nursing education and health care innovation will help advance key initiatives in the School of Nursing. We welcome her vast expertise and visionary approach, which are well-aligned with our mission to advance health and well-being through education and innovation,” said Dean of the College of Public Health Melissa Perry.

Most recently, Drenkard served as professor and associate dean of clinical practice and community engagement at The George Washington University School of Nursing, where she led major clinical initiatives, including the school’s COVID-19 response efforts. Her prior leadership includes a decade as Chief Nurse at Inova Health System, as well as executive roles at GetWell and the American Nurses Credentialing Center, where she served as Executive Director of the Magnet Recognition® Program.

Drenkard is recognized nationally for her transformative leadership and service. She currently chairs the Inova Alexandria Hospital Board Quality and Safety Committee and serves on the boards of the American Organization for Nurse Leaders, the Northern Virginia Workforce Investment Board, and the Watson Caring Science Institute. She is also a member of the Dean’s Advisory Councils for the Indiana University School of Nursing and Russell Sage College, and serves as visiting faculty at the UCSF School of Nursing.

Her thought leadership extends across the country through hundreds of keynote presentations and her extensive faculty work with the UCSF Leadership Institute, where she teaches executive sessions on strategic planning, succession planning, and the integration of human caring into leadership practice. She has also developed comprehensive leadership modules for major health care organizations, spanning executive presence, business planning, financial management, career mapping, and media engagement.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the National Academies of Practice, Drenkard earned her PhD in nursing administration, policy, and ethics from �鶹��Ƶ and is both a Wharton Nurse Executive Fellow and a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow.

Topics

School of Nursing

Nursing Leadership

Nursing Faculty

College of Public Health

Alumni

Faculty and Staff News

Paid sick leave as disease prevention

Taylor Thomas — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:18:24 +0000

Paid sick leave as disease prevention Taylor Thomas Tue, 02/03/2026 - 12:18

In This Story

Suyoung Kwon

Key Takeaways:

New research from the �鶹��Ƶ College of Public Health suggests paid sick leave should be understood not only as an employee benefit, but as a preventive public health intervention.
Among home service workers who regularly enter private homes, such as home nurses and aides and appliance repair technicians, researchers found that stress and perceived infection risk rise before a confirmed diagnosis, when workers must decide whether to stay home sick or risk losing income.
When paid sick leave is unavailable, those pressures compound. The George �鶹��Ƶ study links lack of paid sick leave to higher job stress and lower job satisfaction, effects that ripple beyond individual workers into public health.

Photo via Freepik.

Home service workers—those who provide care, inspections, or repairs inside private homes—can often lack paid sick leave, making illness a direct financial risk. New research from �鶹��Ƶ College of Public Health suggests paid sick leave should be understood not only as an employee benefit, but as a preventive health intervention.

In the study led by assistant nursing professor Suyoung Kwon, paid sick leave was linked to lower perceived infection risk, reduced job stress, and higher job satisfaction. During the early months of COVID-19, the research team surveyed more than 1,600 home service workers in South Korea, including home nurses, childcare workers, appliance repair technicians, and gas meter inspectors.

Notably, workers reported that their highest level of stress was not after a confirmed diagnosis of COVID, but during the window when workers are deciding whether to show up sick or stay home.

“Paid sick leave can function much like personal protective equipment or vaccination for workers in high-contact roles,” said Kwon. “It reduces exposure before harm occurs.”

The study was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Study findings

Workers with paid sick leave reported significantly lower perceived risk of COVID-19 exposure than those with unpaid leave or no leave at all.
Higher perceived risk of infection was associated with greater job stress, which in turn predicted lower job satisfaction. Paid sick leave interrupted that chain.
Workers with no access to sick leave experienced both direct and indirect drops in job satisfaction, suggesting compounded harms when workers lack any safety net.

Why it matters

Many home service workers enter multiple private homes each day. When paid sick leave is available only after a documented diagnosis (like a positive test for COVID-19), workers face a high-stakes choice during their most contagious period: lose income or risk exposing others.

The researchers contend that paid sick leave should be treated as a preventive mechanism that allows workers to stay home when symptoms first appear—before diagnosis or transmission. As policymakers revisit pandemic lessons and prepare for future public health emergencies, this study suggests that expanding paid sick leave is not only a worker protection, but a population-level prevention strategy.

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With NIH grant, George �鶹��Ƶ researcher refines AI storytelling tool for dementia care

Taylor Thomas — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 12:50:12 +0000

With NIH grant, George �鶹��Ƶ researcher refines AI storytelling tool for dementia care Taylor Thomas Tue, 10/28/2025 - 08:50

In This Story

Kyeung Mi Oh, PhD, MSN, RN, FAAN

For people living with early memory loss, recalling and sharing life stories can be a powerful act. It’s the idea behind “reminiscence therapy,” an approach for treating dementia that uses personal memories to boost mood, cognition, and connection.

Kyeung Mi Oh. Photo provided.

Now, �鶹��Ƶ nursing professor Kyeung Mi Oh is working to make that therapy more accessible for diverse communities. She’s serving as co-principal investigator on a new $2.9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to refine the LifeBio Memory app, an artificial-intelligence platform that helps older adults capture their memories and share them with caregivers.

Earlier versions of the LifeBio Memory app have reached nursing homes and assisted-living facilities nationwide, with residents showing greater engagement and fewer symptoms of depression. The new phase brings the app into community settings—with older adults living at home with a caregiver—and expands to multiple languages and cultural contexts, including English, Spanish, and Korean.

A nurse scientist with expertise in gerontology, Oh leads the project’s community-based research arm. “We want to see how storytelling technology can improve quality of life and relationships for both the older adult and the caregiver,” she said. “When people talk about their past, they often smile. It strengthens social support and emotional closeness.”

Over the next three years, Oh’s team—including co-principal investigator Lisbeth Sanders, founder and CEO of LifeBio Inc.—will conduct usability testing followed by a randomized controlled trial with 84 caregiver–care recipient pairs.

While LifeBio’s engineers refine the app’s AI features, such as automatically generating digital life-story books and multimedia “memory videos,” Oh is studying what happens when people use it. The research will examine psychosocial outcomes such as loneliness, depression, and relationship quality, alongside overall quality of life.

“We’re working to make LifeBio Memory accessible for people of different languages and cultural backgrounds, so older adults can tell their life stories in their own voices,” Oh said. “By adapting the platform with AI to reflect cultural nuances, we hope to help a wide range of adults with early memory loss stay connected to family and caregivers, improve their quality of life, and ease feelings of loneliness or depression that can speed cognitive decline.”

If the project is successful, researchers say it could offer a widely scalable, affordable tool for dementia support that’s available for people to use in their own homes and in their own languages.

Topics

Dementia

Aging

Older Adults

Artificial Intelligence

Nursing Faculty

grants

NIH grant funding

National Institutes of Health

Research

Nursing professor serves as special advisor on US President’s Cancer Panel

Taylor Thomas — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 19:16:37 +0000

Nursing professor serves as special advisor on US President’s Cancer Panel Taylor Thomas Fri, 10/11/2024 - 15:16

In This Story

Caroline Sutter, DNP

The President’s Cancer Panel hosted a public meeting on Thursday, September 12, 2024, entitled “Developing and Retaining a Robust and Diverse Cancer Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities Across the National Cancer Program”. The meeting is part of the Panel’s development of recommendations and reports to President Joe Biden.

Caroline Sutter, health workforce expert, was asked to be a special advisor to the Panel at their public meeting. Sutter is nationally recognized for her work implementing and evaluating models of community health care access and system navigation. She is a credentialed Family Nurse Practitioner and one of the co-founders of the �鶹��Ƶ and Partners (MAP) Clinic. Sutter currently serves as the codirector of the Center for Health Workforce at �鶹��Ƶ, which was established to address the shortage of health workers in Virginia on top of her position as a professor in the College of Public Health School of Nursing.

You can listen to the recordings of the meetings from September 12 and 13 here. Learn more about the President’s Cancer Panel and the National Cancer Plan.

Topics

Nursing Faculty

Cancer Prevention and Control

Center for Health Workforce

public health workforce

Faculty and Staff News

Ashley Wiest, DNP, FNP-BC

Mary Cunningham — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 17:14:34 +0000

Ashley Wiest, DNP, FNP-BC Mary Cunningham Fri, 06/07/2024 - 13:14

Project Coordinator for �鶹��Ƶ’s Learning Laboratory for Community Health
Provider for ECOP JMAT and Bridge Program
Faculty for the School of Nursing (�鶹��Ƶ Online Program)
Family Nurse Practitioner, Board Certified (FNP-BC)

Contact Information

Email: ahabina@gmu.edu

Biography

Dr. Ashley Wiest (she/her/hers) is the Project Coordinator for �鶹��Ƶ’s Learning Laboratory for Community Health, a Provider for ECOP JMAT and Bridge Program, and a professor for the School of Nursing (�鶹��Ƶ Online Program) and College of Public Health. Wiest is a leading expert on working with underserved populations, particularly the uninsured, homeless, and disabled populations. She specializes in developing relationships with partners, focusing on community engagement and relationship building.

Before her career at �鶹��Ƶ, she worked as a clinical specialist for Sentara Health System in the Emergency Department, developing a fellowship program focused on a new graduate retention model. Wiest is a three-time alumnus of �鶹��Ƶ (BSN, MSN, DNP). She has extensive experience in her career in project development, developing programs from the ground up and leading them towards successful sustainability. Her current project involvement includes workforce development for graduate research assistants in the Learning Lab, focusing on student education, experience, and rapid quality improvement.

Degrees

Bachelor of Science, Nursing, �鶹��Ƶ, 2009
Master of Science, Nursing Education, �鶹��Ƶ, 2015
Doctor of Nursing Practice, Family Nurse Practitioner, �鶹��Ƶ, 2022

In the News

Learning Laboratory for Community Health prepares graduate students to solve real-world public health challenges
June 6, 2024

Associate Professor Erin D. Maughan receives VDOE Grant to invigorate the future of school nursing

Taylor Thomas — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 17:53:38 +0000

Associate Professor Erin D. Maughan receives VDOE Grant to invigorate the future of school nursing Taylor Thomas Fri, 02/09/2024 - 12:53

Both regionally and across the country, there is a severe lack of programs dedicated to school nursing administrators (i.e. nurses who lead school nursing and school health programs at the district level). Erin Maughan, an associate professor in College of Public Health’s School of Nursing at �鶹��Ƶ, intends to remedy this with a $364,503 grant from the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). With the funding, Maughan will establish the School Nursing Leadership Academy.

Erin D. Maughan

"There are over 130,000 school nurses across the nation, who are central to the foundation of the health and well-being of children,” Maughan said. "The goal of the academy is to develop leaders in school nursing who have the knowledge and skills needed to successfully oversee school health programs at the district level, as well as state and regional school nursing associations."

The academy, which is expected to be fully developed by June 2024, will be designed to train future leaders in school nursing using TeamSTEPPS, an evidence-based curriculum that prioritizes incorporating effective communication and teamwork into the health care system. The program will take place over one-and-a-half years and will incorporate experiential learning, equestrian activity, and expert-led discussions.

In addition, �鶹��Ƶ's Center for Health Workforce is guiding the development of sustainable asynchronous modules for the professional development program, which along with virtual webinars, will provide additional information and mentoring opportunities.

The program kicks off with three days of in–person instruction, during which participants will use virtual reality (VR) modules to practice interprofessional skills and conflict management. �鶹��Ƶ's College of Public Health is a leader in integrating VR into the curriculum and training of future health care leaders.

“Participating in the VR will allow gaining experience in a safe, nonthreatening environment where we can talk about how they reacted so they will have confidence and experience when they encounter situations in the real world,” said Maughan.

Maughan was originally approached by the VDOE’s state school nurse consultant Tracy White, who wanted to foster more leadership training and was aware of Maughan’s passion to do so as well. Together, they set into motion plans to create the academy.

Maughan is a leading expert on school nursing and the health of school-age children. Her research expertise is in looking at the role of infrastructure and policy on school nurse staffing and services. In addition, she has expertise in leadership, strategic planning, innovation, and mentoring. Her career is dedicated to children’s health, especially vulnerable populations. She is excited to contribute her skills and knowledge for the success of the academy.

“Having been a school nurse leader and researcher for many years, it has been a dream of mine to create such a program,” said Maughan. "I hope this program will build excitement and create a network of confident school nurse leaders who can transform school nursing in their districts, so that frontline school nurses have the guidance and support they need to work to their full scope of practice.

Maughan emphasizes how this program is not only for school nurses but also for the students they will be serving.

At its core, the School Nursing Leadership Academy is about building capacity to help school nurse leaders build their confidence and skills needed to do well in the position,” said Maughan. “We are confident this initiative will position school nurses and their program leaders to work effectively with school administrators, local health departments, health care providers and families to positively impact student health, and thus improve child health in the commonwealth and the rest of the nation.”

In This Story

Erin D. Maughan, PhD

More news from the College of Public Health

Karen Drenkard announced as Acting Divisional Dean of the �鶹��Ƶ School of Nursing
March 6, 2026
The George �鶹��Ƶ alumni behind SOSS Bros and their secret sauce
February 2, 2026
George �鶹��Ƶ online graduate programs rank among Virginia’s best
January 27, 2026
Walkability initiative is a win-win partnership for Alexandria City residents and George �鶹��Ƶ researchers
January 26, 2026
George �鶹��Ƶ faculty and students host inaugural Qualitative Research Day 
January 21, 2026

Topics

Nursing Administration

Workforce Development

Research

School Nursing

Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP)

TTIP

Kenneth Frese

eander6 — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 02:10:29 +0000

Kenneth Frese eander6 Wed, 05/31/2023 - 22:10

Director of Clinical Operations Nursing

Contact Information

Phone: 703-993-5613

Biography

Dr. Kenneth Frese is Director of Clinical Operations in the School of Nursing. Frese’s research and quality improvement interests are in patient safety, expanding healthcare access, new nurse preparedness and professional identity. Before coming to �鶹��Ƶ, Frese was a clinical nurse for 31 years, spanning roles from Practical Nurse to Clinical Nurse Specialist. His experience includes 27 years with Inova primarily in Critical Care, and he has led and collaborated on multiple successful facility and system-wide QI projects.

Awards

Iams Quality Award, Inova, 2020
Iams Quality Merit Citation, Inova, 2018
Iams Quality Award, Inova, 2017
Iams Quality Award, Inova, 2016
Nursing Excellence Award, Inova, 2015
Iams Quality Award, Inova, 2014

Professional Affiliations/Memberships

Member, American Nurses Association (ANA), https://www.nursingworld.org/
Member, American Association or Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), https://www.aacn.org/
Member, Virginia Nurses Association (VNA), https://virginianurses.com/

Degrees

Doctorate of Nursing Practice – Education & Administration, �鶹��Ƶ, 2023
Masters of Science in Nursing – Advanced Clinical Practice, �鶹��Ƶ, 2012
Associates of Science in Nursing, Northern Virginia Community College, 2007
Associates of Science in Psychology, Northern Virginia Community College, 2007

Nurses trained via virtual reality performed better than those trained by inpatient clinical training

Mary Cunningham — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 20:37:23 +0000

Nurses trained via virtual reality performed better than those trained by inpatient clinical training Mary Cunningham Tue, 04/11/2023 - 16:37

Lab Coordinator Bethany Cieslowski helps nursing student Katherine Gugino adjust the virtual reality headset during a VR Simulation Lab training class. Photo by: Shelby Burgess, Office of University Branding

In search of novel tactics to accommodate a larger student body and fulfill workforce demands, nursing schools are developing new approaches to optimize learning, engage learners, and provide methods to ensure competency in future nursing graduates.

A recent study by Bethany Cieslowski, associate professor of Nursing, and colleagues found that immersive virtual reality (VR) training has been shown to be as effective as inpatient training for students learning to provide care for acute care pediatric patients. The performance of student nurses who underwent immersive virtual reality training was found to be better overall than that of their counterparts who received inpatient clinical training.

“The use of VR continues to grow in clinical nursing practice; however, the existing body of evidence on VR, especially immersive virtual reality, is limited. These preliminary results offer promise and demonstrate the potential of immersive virtual reality in the future of nursing education and preparing the workforce of the future,” said Cieslowski.

Nursing student Elianna Puerto uses a virtual reality set for a new simulation platform, SimX, during a VR Simulation Lab training class. Photo by: Shelby Burgess, Office of University Branding

The average (mean) scores for students in the immersive VR training group were higher for all performance domains, with particularly notable improvements in the subdomains of infection control, initial assessment, and oxygen therapy compared to the clinic trained group. There were no significant differences between the groups in focused assessment, medication administration, and evaluation. Total performance scores were significantly higher for the VR group.

The mixed-methods without randomization pilot study examined the effectiveness of an immersive VR simulation training program to replace pediatric clinical practice for a convenience sample of junior-level prelicensure nursing students.

“The Development and Pilot Testing of Immersive Virtual Reality Simulation Training for Prelicensure Nursing Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study” was published in Clinical Simulation in Nursing in February 2023. Tanya Haas, assistant professor of nursing; Kyeung Mi Oh, associate professor of nursing; Kathleen Chang, assistant professor of Nursing; and Cheryl Oetjen, interim director of the School of Nursing were also part of the research team.

The Medical Team, Inc. Endowment for Innovations in Nursing Education Fund funded part of the research.

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