12/10/15  Portland, Ore.

Outstanding faculty and the top quality students they attract are the greatest assets of an academic institution.

Stewarding that faculty asset means attracting and rewarding faculty whose research rises to the highest level of positive impact for the health of the American people and beyond. Honoring top faculty with named Distinguished Professorships is one key way of recognizing such faculty.

A Distinguished Professorship also is a lasting tribute to the values and beliefs of donors and of the individuals named in Professorships. The research accomplished by a faculty honored with the title memorializes the key leaders of their time whose names are attached.

At OHSU School of Nursing, Distinguished Professorships signify those faculty whose research and other scholarly work has such high national impact as to be recognized by outside peers as truly exceptional. The research of these faculty also stands to accelerate the School's mission and strategic agenda to serve the people of Oregon and the nation.

Our two new Distinguished Professors are:

Christopher S. Lee, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.H.A., F.A.A.N., Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Knight Cardiovascular Institute, will be the Carol A. Lindeman Distinguished Professor.

Dr. Lee leads an interdisciplinary program of integrative biobehavioral research in heart failure and heads an impressive team of experts in cardiovascular medicine, psychology, biostatistics, neuroendocrine physiology, and nursing. His national and international work has been recognized repeatedly by the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Nursing for its innovation in combining biological processes with psychosocial and behavioral aspects of living with heart failure.

Carol A. Lindeman, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N. was the longest serving Dean of the School of Nursing and an early and powerful national voice on the importance of nursing research as a critical element for improving patient care. In her many years as Dean, she not only built a cadre of strong research faculty in the School but also rose to national prominence in nursing organizations that represent the highest levels of nursing scholarship.

Kerri Winters-Stone, Ph.D., F.A.C.S.M., Research Professor, School of Nursing and Knight Cancer Institute, will be the Elnora E. Thomson Distinguished Professor.

Dr. Winters-Stone has achieved national and international recognition for her work on the positive effects of exercise on both physiologic and psychosocial outcomes in cancer survivors. She has secured over $7 million in research funding from NIH and other prominent funders of cancer prevention and treatment. Findings from her studies have substantially contributed to making exercise an evidence-based intervention that is now a key element of the standard of care for cancer survivors.

Elnora E. Thomson, R.N., F.A.P.H.A., became the Director of a new Public Health Nursing program under the School of Social Work at the University of Oregon in 1920. She later became the Director of the Department of Nursing Education at the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland. Throughout her career, Ms. Thomson was a leader in professional organizations for both nursing and social work at national and international levels.