University Times

Jacqueline Dunbar-Jacob, a faculty member here for 17 years and founding director of Pitt's Center for Nursing Research, has been appointed dean of the School of Nursing.

She succeeds Dean Ellen Rudy and Interim Dean Lynda Davidson.

"Dr. Dunbar-Jacob's accomplishments as an educator, researcher, and leader along with her record of service to the nursing community and beyond have been recognized nationally and internationally," said Arthur S. Levine, Pitt senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences and dean of the medical school. "These experiences will enable her to lead the School of Nursing into a breadth of new opportunities."

The Center for Nursing Research, which Dunbar-Jacob directed for nine years, has been credited with helping Pitt's nursing school to become a major research center. Last year, the school ranked fifth among nursing schools in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, up from eighth in 1999. The NIH awarded Pitt nursing faculty $3.7 million in 2000, mainly for research on adolescent health, chronic disorders, critical care and basic science.

Dunbar-Jacob said her mandate includes expanding the school's research efforts and continuing to provide high-quality education. "We don't have serious deficits that need to be addressed," she said. "What we need to do is continue to improve our rankings and our educational programs. It's an ongoing process.

"When the search committee called to see if I was interested in becoming dean, I thought very, very carefully about it," Dunbar-Jacob said. "The thing that most influenced my decision to put my application in the pool [of candidates] was that I wanted to see the school move in the directions of increasing our research activities, expanding our doctoral program and continuing to support our already-excellent undergraduate program. One way to see the school move in those directions, I decided, was to be in an administrative position to help facilitate those things."

Dunbar-Jacob's research focuses on patient adherence to treatment. She has been an investigator for 24 years, 21 with NIH funding, and has served as a co-investigator on studies of AIDS, rheumatology, cardiovascular risk factors, cancer screening and transplantation. She is a research consultant to a number of clinical trials, including the Women's Health Initiative and the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial.

She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the American Psychological Association, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine, as well as a board member of the Society for Clinical Trials. She recently was appointed to the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Nursing Research.

"In addition to her research interests and professional appointments, she has devoted her career to teaching nursing students from the undergraduate to the doctorate level, as well as medical students, residents, public health students and psychology students," stated a Pitt announcement of her appointment as dean.

Dunbar-Jacob came to Pitt in 1984 from Stanford University's School of Medicine, to serve as assistant professor of psychiatry, epidemiology and psychiatric-mental health nursing and director of nursing at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

Prior to her appointment as dean, she was a professor of nursing in the School of Nursing with joint appointments in the Graduate School of Public Health's epidemiology department and the occupational therapy department in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. She also chaired the nursing school's Department of Health and Community Systems.

Dunbar-Jacob earned her Ph.D. in counseling psychology at Stanford University, where she later served as an assistant professor of psychiatry. She graduated magna cum laude from Florida State University with a B.S. degree in nursing and received her master's degree in psychiatric nursing, with a post-master's certificate in child psychiatric nursing and family therapy from the University of California, San Francisco.

— Bruce Steele