Jan Atwood, Ph.D., of UNMC’s College of Nursing, recently received the Midwest Nursing Research Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the society’s annual conference in Chicago. The Midwest Nursing Research Society, which covers a 13-state region, has more than 1,400 members. For 20 years, it has been promoting the growth of nursing research quality and quantity in the Midwest.
Dr. Atwood is the Niedfelt Professor of nursing with specialties in oncology and community health nursing, as well as professor of preventive and societal medicine in the College of Medicine. She also is research director of the Nebraska Office of Tobacco Control and Research at UNMC, which is a multi-campus, multidisciplinary endeavor.
“The award recognizes a society member who has significantly advanced the profession of nursing through an extensive program of research or creation of environments where research can flourish, and whose distinguished career yielded outstanding and noteworthy accomplishments,” said Lauren Aaronson, Ph.D., president of the Midwest Nursing Research Society and professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing.
“Dr. Atwood’s program of community-based research has made many contributions in the areas of health promotion and compliance, and intervention development and testing,” she said. “The society is most proud to count on her as one of our own and are delighted to honor her with this award.”
One of Dr. Atwood’s research focuses is designing ways to measure whether a researcher’s interventions are successful. She teaches others how to develop measures and has provided measurement expertise to scientists in and from many countries and disciplines.
“It was nice to have international, interdisciplinary research and mentoring rewarded so junior scientists might better understand their value,” Dr. Atwood said. “I feel this recognition also reflects the research program at the UNMC College of Nursing.”
In January, she received the Florence Niedfelt Professorship, an endowed, three-year appointment for excellence in research, teaching, leadership and mentoring.
She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1964, and her master’s degree in public health in 1967, from the University of Michigan. She received her master’s degree in sociology in 1976, and her doctoral degree in educational psychology in 1976, with a minor in nursing from the University of Arizona.