Grant Awards & Funded Projects

LHSON Dean's Grant 2024-2025 – Dr. Tiffany Flood (Project director), Dr. Michelle Jamison and Dr. Jennifer Jones (Co-directors)

Dr. Flood, Dr. Jamison, and Dr. Jones received a $5,000 grant for the LHSON Dean's Grant award for their project titled, “The Student Nurse Camp: A Model to Increase Access & Success in the Pathway to Nursing with Inclusive Excellence.” This funding aims to address the nursing shortage by increasing diversity through immersive initiatives that target marginalized youth to promote nursing as a career and dispel barriers, in partnership with the non-profit local organization, CompassRN. 

For additional information, contact Dr. Tiffany Flood at Tiffany_Flood@baylor.edu.

LHSON Dean’s Grant 2024-2025 – Dr. Katy Vogelaar (Project director), Dr. Laura Butler and Dr. Shelli Ellis (Co-directors)

Dr. Vogelaar, Dr. Butler., and Dr. Ellis received a $5,000 LHSON Dean’s Grant award for their project titled: “Role socialization through simulation-based experiences to increase pre-nursing student retention within the major: A quality improvement study.” This project aims to increase pre-nursing student retention to the major by adding simulation to the freshman level introductory course. With increased retention within the major, these funds will not only impact the quality of the pre-nursing student experience but also the projected nursing shortage crisis. 

For additional information, contact Dr. Katy Vogelaar at Katy_Vogelaar@baylor.edu.

THECB Nursing & Allied Health-Nursing Innovation Grant Program (NIGP) 2023-2025 – Dr. Brandy Brown and Dr. Alona Angosta (Co-directors)

Dr. Brown and Dr. Angosta of Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing (LHSON) were awarded $200,000.00 grant from THECB NIGP to support a project entitled, “Innovation to Impact: Online Education with Academic-Practice Initiative for Increasing and Retaining Nurses in Texas.” The aim of the project is to develop, implement, and evaluate an innovative and collaborative initiative that will positively influence nursing practice shortages through education, retention, and recruitment strategies and inform future initiatives through research. The project will be implemented through the Distance Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (DABSN) program. The LHSON’s DABSN program is a 12-month accelerated online BSN program track that was designed to admit students from across Texas with the goal of increasing the nursing workforce in rural Texas. Rural areas are extremely impacted by the nursing shortage with limited resources to meet patient care needs. To date, the DABSN program track has graduated over 150 students to enter the nursing workforce over the last 3 years. Many of those graduates are now registered nurses (RNs) who are working in the state of Texas. As we continue to expand the DABSN program, we will need to add initiatives to target recruitment, strengthen academic experiences in the clinical setting, support preceptors, and bridge the gap between academia and practice while improving retention across both settings. The NIGP funds helps support this initiative. Funds will be used to develop and implement online learning platforms to support nurses and nursing preceptors, provide online interactive educational sessions for nurses, preceptors, and students for confidence and community building; and host in-person educational and recruitment events for nursing students and nurses in the rural Texas healthcare settings, where limited access to professional development and decreased access to nursing education occur.

For additional information, contact Dr. Alona Angosta at Alona_Angosta@baylor.edu   or Dr. Brandy Brown atBrandy_Brown@baylor.edu.

Discovery Grant Foundation 2023-2024 – Dr. Marie Lindley (Project director), Shopha Tserotas, Dr. Erin Killingsworth, and Dr. Alona Angosta (Co-directors) 

Dr. Lindley, Ms. Tserotas (PhDc), Dr. Killingsworth, and Dr. Angosta received $50,000.00 grant from the Discovery Foundation. Project title: Enhancing Nursing Students Learning to Address Women’s Health in Underserved Populations.” This funding will support more LHSON students, prepare more nurses, help solve the nursing shortage crisis, and increase the quality of health care for individuals throughout North Texas, across the state, and around the world. 

For additional information, contact Dr. Marie Lindley at Marie_Lindley@baylor.edu.

Network for the National Library of Medicine, Region 3, Health Information Outreach Grant Award 2023-2024 – Jamie Quinn (Project director), Dr. Debbie Shirey and Dr. Lisa Jones (Co-directors) 

The Network for the National Library of Medicine Region 3, which is a part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and National Institutes of Health, awarded the Baylor University LHSON $25,000. Project title: “Fostering diversity awareness in nursing students to improve health disparities for underserved populations in Texas.” This outreach award sought to promote awareness of consumer health information and empower well-being among minority community members in geographically underserved areas of Texas and to train and develop diverse pre-nursing university students to explore extracurricular activities that increase representation and participation in NLM teaching and outreach. Community outreach was conducted by the undergraduate nursing Population Health students and Rio Grande Valley mission nursing students to both Dallas urban areas and the Rio Grande Valley rural areas and was successful in connecting African American and Hispanic individuals with consumer health materials that can improve chronic conditions and health outcomes.

For additional information, contact Jamie Quinn at Jamie_Quinn@baylor.edu.

Medical Library Association, Librarians Without Borders, Ursula Poland International Scholarship Award 2023-2024 – Jamie Quinn (Project director), Dr. Tiffany Flood and Dr. Kelly Rossler (Co-directors)

The Medical Library Association awarded the Baylor University LHSON a scholarship award in the amount of $1,000 for their project titled, “Developing Culturally Competent Consumer Health Literature to Support International Missions and Student Engagement.” This project supported Librarian cultivated consumer health materials to support educational activities nursing students conducted while on the 2023 summer mission trip to Ndola, Zambia in collaboration with Northrise University.

For additional information, contact Jamie Quinn at Jamie_Quinn@baylor.edu.

Baylor University Research Committee (ONE-URC) 2023-2024 – Dr. Elizabeth Caldwell (Principal Investigator), Dr. Rebecca Meraz and Dr. Alicia Chang (Co-investigators) 

Dr. Caldwell and Dr. Meraz of Baylor University LHSON and Dr. Chang, MD of The University of Texas, Austin/Dell Children’s Hospital received $4,688.00 grant from the Texas Organization of Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Education (TOBGNE) Excellence in Teaching Research Grant. Project title: “The Potential Relationship between Health Literacy and Resilience in Adolescents with Sickle Cell Disease.” This project will inform an overall program of work investigating health literacy in adolescents with SCD and other chronic illnesses, with the goal to implement interventions that could lead to improved health outcomes within these populations.

Texas Organization of Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Education Excellence in Teaching Research Grant 2023-2024 – Dr. Courtney Brandt (Project director) & Chloe Silcox (Co-director)

Dr. Brandt and Ms. Silcox at the Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing (LHSON) received $2,000.00 grant from the Texas Organization of Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Education (TOBGNE) Excellence in Teaching Research Grant. Project title: “Equipping New Nurses to Navigate End-of-Life Scenarios Alongside their Patients.” This grant provided funding to the use of innovative teaching strategies that allow students to engage directly in the death and dying process need to be integrated into pre-licensure curricula.

For additional information, contact Courtney Brandt at Courtney_Brandt@baylor.edu.

Southern Nursing Research Society 2023-2024 & Baylor University LHSON Dean’s Grant – Dr. Angelina Nguyen (Principal investigator) PI & Dr. Weiming Ke (Co-investigator)

Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Ke received a $7,500 grant from the Southern Nursing Research Society on their project titled, "Psychosocial Phenotyping of Vietnamese Americans - Tâm Lý Xã Hội của Người Mỹ Gốc Việt." The purpose of this study was to construct a Vietnamese survey set that would enable psychosocial phenotype categorization for Vietnamese Americans with or at risk for type 2 diabetes. Dr. Nguyen received an additional $3,850 Dean’s grant from the Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing to expand this project to include additional surveys completed in English, allowing the identification of the major psychosocial phenotypes of this larger collective sample. The findings from this research addresses these prioritized research areas from the NINR: (1) population health with the selection of standardized surveys; (2) prevention/health promotion by identifying health needs of Vietnamese Americans; (3) social determinants of health are a domain of interest in this study; and (4) health equity through the precision health interventions which will be developed with psychosocial phenotyping. The PI of this project was Dr. Lina Nguyen. Dr. Weiming Ke was a CO-I. Collaborators on this project include Dr. Miyong T. Kim from University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Tam H. Nguyen and Dr. Christopher Lee from Boston College.

For additional information, contact Dr. Lina Nguyen at Angelina_Nguyen@baylor.edu. 

Discovery Grant Foundation 2022-2023 – Shopha Tserotas (Project director), Dr. Renee Jones, Dr. Erin Killingsworth, and Dr. Alona Angosta (Co-directors)

Shopha Tserotas, Dr. Renee Jones, Dr. Erin Killingsworth, and Dr. Alona Angosta received $47,000.00 grant from the Discovery Foundation. Project title: “Using Simulation-Based Training with Undergraduate and Advanced Practice Nursing Students to Improve Skill Performance and Impact the Health and Well-being of Women.” This funding supported a project to expand the use of simulation-based training, specifically in Women's Preventive Health, with our undergraduate students and advanced practice nursing students in the Family Nurse Practitioner and Nurse Midwifery tracks.

For additional information, contact Shopha Tserotas at Shopha_Tserotas@baylor.edu.

Baylor University Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Achievement (URSA) Grant 2021-2022 – Dr. Angelina Nguyen (Co-PI)

Dr. Nguyen’s project titled, “Diabetes Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Care in Vietnamese Americans of Texas: Data from the 2015 – 2019 Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (BRFSS)”, was funded $5,000 in 2021 through the Baylor University’s URSA Program. In collaboration with undergraduate nursing students, a secondary analysis of aggregated BRFSS data was conducted to examine health status and unmet needs among Asian American/Pacific Islanders with diabetes. Dr. Nguyen and Ms. Thy Khong (student) were Co-PIs on this project. Collaborators on this project include Dr. Weiming Ke from Baylor University and Dr. Miyong T. Kim from the University of Texas at Austin.

For additional information, contact Dr. Lina Nguyen at Angelina_Nguyen@baylor.edu. 

Baylor University, University Research Committee (URC) 2020-2021 – Dr. Angelina Nguyen (Principal investigator), Dr. Erin Killingsworth and Dr. Jonathan Tran (Co-investigators)

The URC awarded Dr. Nguyen, Dr. Killingsworth, and Dr. Tran from Baylor University $7,000 for their project titled, “Vietnamese Translations for the Tripartite Model of Risk Perception (TRIRISK), Acculturation Scale for Southeast Asians, and Spiritual Perspective Scale (SPS).” The purpose of this study was to culturally adapt (including Vietnamese language translations) instruments measuring the concepts of: (1) risk perception related to diabetes, (2) acculturation, and (3) spirituality. This study used a prospective, cross-sectional design with a forward and back translation process for tool adaption. This project provides valid and reliable tools to measure these concepts in Vietnamese Americans who are either monolingual or bilingual but with reading preference for the Vietnamese language. These tools will be especially important for future studies related to diabetes prevention. 

For additional information, contact Dr. Lina Nguyen at Angelina_Nguyen@baylor.edu. 

National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health Awards Funding to Baylor Scott & White Research Institute and Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing
Baylor University’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing (LHSON) and Baylor Scott & White Research Institute recently received funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health. Co-Leading the research study is Dr. Kelly Rossler, Ph.D, RN, CHSE, Assistant Professor and INACSL Research Fellow, LHSON, and Dr. Ganesh Sankaranarayanan, Assistant Director, Center for Evidence Based Simulation, Academic Simulation Program, Baylor Scott & White Health. 

For additional information, contact Dr. Kelly Rossler at Kelly_Rossler@baylor.edu