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An Arlington native and retired nursing professor is urging residents to contact their senators and oppose proposed cuts to biomedical research and global health funding.
Her connection to nursing began while attending Yorktown High School. During her senior year, she joined a work-study program and spent 17 hours each week working as a nurse’s aide at Arlington Hospital. She credits that experience, along with her education in Arlington Public Schools, with inspiring a 45-year nursing career.
After earning BSN, MSN and PhD degrees, she became a nursing professor and later Professor Emerita of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research sought better care for premature infants and their families, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation and other organizations.
Several studies examined how parents could safely touch extremely premature infants. Earlier research had found that some forms of contact could cause agitation, lower oxygen levels and harmful changes in heart rate. Other projects evaluated educational programs intended to strengthen parent-child interactions and improve outcomes for children and their families.
Her work also extended to global health programs in Latin America and Africa, including efforts to improve nursing education and prepare nurses to confront the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Drawing on that experience, she warns that proposed reductions affecting the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the legislation known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” could undermine disease research and programs that improve lives in the United States and abroad. She is asking readers to urge their senators to reject those cuts.