Posted: 10/29/2007
Deborah Gross, DNSc, RN, FAAN, a nationally recognized expert in children’s mental health, has been named the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing. Gross will hold a unique dual faculty appointment, building a collaborative program of research and training that bridges the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Medicine.
“When I interviewed at Hopkins, I was so impressed by the faculty in nursing, psychiatry, and public health,” says Gross. “They were open, generous, and smart and willing to share their knowledge! I am looking forward to working with people who are great collaborators, and who can help me grow as a researcher.”
Gross’ research has explored interventions to promote healthy relationships between parents and children five years and younger, with an emphasis on family-based interventions for low-income people of color. These include recruitment and retention strategies, outcome measures, and developing more participant-centered methodologies. Gross comes to JHUSON from her position as Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship at Rush University College of Nursing, where she had been a faculty member since 1987 and served as chair of the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health since 2004.
When the Stulman Professorship was established by Leonard Stulman, a Baltimore philanthropist and Johns Hopkins alumnus, JHUSON Dean Martha Hill predicted that “this endowment from the Stulman Foundation will play a pivotal role in preparing future generations of mental health nurses, physicians, and others interested in research and patient care.” Today, she is confident that Gross will fulfill that original aspiration, noting that “Dr. Gross will bring to this role the collaborative approach that is so necessary to advancing mental health research and the education of those who lead the field in the future.”