2016 Protégé Award from Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research

11/01/16  Portland, Ore.

Christopher S. Lee, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.H.A., F.A.A.N., F.H.F.S.A., was presented the 2016 Protégé award.

The 2016 Protégé Award from Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research was presented to Christopher S. Lee, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.H.A., F.A.A.N., F.H.F.S.A., faculty member of the OHSU School of Nursing and a leading nurse scientist in integrative biobehavioral research in cardiovascular disease.

The awards ceremony was held on October 19, 2016 in Washington, D.C.

The Protégé Award is given to an evolving nurse scientist who shows great promise in advancing science and who is within the first 10 years of completing either the PhD or Post-Doctoral study. The recipient of this award is a developing scientist who models sophistication, innovation, and the potential for rapid uptake of his/her research across disciplines and who has communicated a clear trajectory for high impact clinical and/or health system outcomes through early work.

Dr. Lee leads an interprofessional longitudinal program of research on patients with heart failure, which falls within the School of Nursing’s signature science area of integrative biobehavioral research. His work focuses on the bio-behavioral profiles of heart failure patients – identifying risks at the epigenetic and social-behavioral levels. He and his team have identified distinct archetypes of heart failure patient-partner couples. These findings mean that clinical care can be specifically tailored to how patients and their partners work together to manage the illness. His studies also inform how patients self-manage their disease to maximize their quality of life and to indicate what clinicians can do to support them. Finally, his work has identified pathogenic biomarkers in patients with advanced heart failure undergoing mechanical circulatory support – this means we can know in advance who will likely benefit from this expensive therapy and who will not. He has been supported by competitive grants from multiple sources including the American Heart Association, the Office of Research on Women’s Health, and the National Institute of Nursing Research.

Dr. Lee is the Carol A. Lindeman Distinguished Professor/Associate Professor at Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing and Knight Cardiovascular Institute. He earned a B.S.N. from the University of New Hampshire, and an M.S.N. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Lee has more than 80 publications and his work has been cited more than 1,300 times. Dr. Lee has received numerous awards and other recognition for his influential heart failure research and related service to the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the Heart Failure Society of America, and the American Academy of Nursing.

Current Research information

Read Patterns and predictors of patient and caregiver engagement in heart failure care: A multi-level dyadic study on PubMed

Read Symptom-Hemodynamic mismatch and heart failure event risk on PubMed

** This post originally appeared on the OHSU SON internal blog authored by Virginia Tilden, Senior Associate Dean of Research