The School of Nursing welcomed acclaimed researcher and educator Nancy Redeker, Ph.D., RN, FAHA, FAAN, to its faculty in March. The UConn Board of Trustees approved Redeker’s appointment as professor with tenure at its Sept. 29, 2021, meeting.
Redeker, who is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Heart Association, has an international reputation in biobehavioral nursing science. Previously, she was the Beatrice Renfield Professor of Nursing at Yale University and director of the Yale School of Nursing Center for Biobehavioral Health Research. Her sustained program of research addresses the role of sleep and sleep disorders, and the effects of behavioral sleep promotion interventions, in people who have acute and chronic conditions.
A few months after joining the School, Redeker also stepped into the role of interim associate dean for research and scholarship.
“We are thrilled to have Dr. Redeker join our esteemed faculty,” says Dean Deborah Chyun, Ph.D., RN, FAHA, FAAN. “Her knowledge and experience are incredible assets for our students and our transformative research and learning programs. Her research focus pairs well with our faculty members’ areas of expertise, and I look forward to seeing how future collaborations will help us all grow.”
Before her time at Yale, Redeker spent 15 years at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now part of Rutgers), where she held various positions within the College of Nursing, including director of graduate programs in nursing, interim dean, and associate dean for research.
“Public universities like UConn have a mission to the state,” she says. “It is a mission to the local public as well as the national public and that is really important to me. The UConn School of Nursing also has a large undergraduate program and I think it is important for research education, which I specialize in, to span all levels of higher education. I am really excited to be here at UConn and share my experience to support that.”
She says she is also looking forward to expanding her research through new collaborations at UConn.
“Sleep research is an inherently interdisciplinary field,” Redeker says. “It has been an important experience for me to partner with researchers in different fields, not only because it has helped my research, but because I have been able to bring my nursing perspective to others. I hope to continue that at UConn.”
In 2017, Redeker was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nurse Researchers Hall of Fame, the world’s leading nursing research-oriented award, and in 2016, she received the Distinguished Contribution to Nursing Research Award from the Eastern Nursing Research Society, the nation’s leading nursing research-oriented professional society.
She says that, despite her accolades in research, what first inspired her to begin a career in academia was the desire to educate future nurses and nurse scientists.
“I enjoy sharing what I know and helping the next generation,” says Redeker, who has served as a research mentor for over 20 postdoctoral fellows and early career scholars.
She is a member of the Board of the Directors of the American Academy of Nursing and the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation. She previously served as chair of the Council for Advancement of Nursing Science, nursing’s leading scientific body. She is editor-in-chief of Heart & Lung: the Journal of Cardiopulmonary and Acute Care, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Behavioral Sleep Medicine and Sleep Medicine Reviews.
“These positions have helped me keep my finger on what is going on nationally, but also allowed me to help guide the direction of nursing research, as well as learn about major health care needs across the country,” Redeker says. “I have also learned a lot about the research process, which has helped my own grant writing and understanding of the direction research should take, as well as how I can help others do the same.”
Redeker is currently the principal investigator of two studies funded by the National Institutes of Health: a U01-funded study on opioid use disorder and sleep, and an R01-funded study titled “RISE-UP,” which is a randomized controlled trial designed to test the effects of continuous positive airway treatment on function in stroke survivors.
Over the past six years, she has been a principal investigator, co-investigator, or mentor on 58 extramural grants. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 19 book chapters, 120 peer-reviewed abstracts, and has been invited to present on her research at major scientific conferences around the world. She has served on 25 scientific review committees at the national and international level. And she provided service to the profession in more than a dozen leadership roles in different societies and consulted with over 15 academic institutions.
“I hope the entire University will join me in welcoming Dr. Redeker to UConn Nation and our community of researchers,” Chyun says.
This article was originally published in the Fall 2022 issue of Unison.
