The School of Nursing announced the appointment of five endowed chairs and professors. Professor Margaret P. Moss, PhD, JD, RN, FAAN, was named a holder of the Katherine R. & C. Walton Lillehei Chair in Nursing Leadership. Associate Professor Anne Chevalier McKechnie, PhD, RN, was named a holder of the School of Nursing Foundation Research Professorship. Associate Professor Rozina Bhimani, PhD, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, CNE, CRRN, Professor Niloufar Hadidi, PhD, APRN, ACNS-BC, FAHA, and Associate Professor Kristine Talley, PhD, RN, CNP, FGSA, were named holders of the Long Term Care Professorship in Nursing.

In addition to providing faculty with the resources necessary to advance their research and innovations, endowed chairs and professorships are essential for recruiting and retaining the highest-quality scholars. They help create an academic environment that attracts the best students by giving them access to key learning.

Katherine R. & C. Walton Lillehei Chair in Nursing Leadership

The Katherine R. & C. Walton Lillehei Chair in Nursing Leadership was created in 2001 in appreciation for the role the University played in their lives and in the belief that education holds a society together. It is named after Katherine R. Lillehei, a nursing student in the 1940s and former School of Nursing Foundation member, and her husband C. Walton, a renowned Minnesota physician and pioneer of open-heart surgery.

Moss, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota, is the only American Indian nurse with a PhD and JD. She has served as a nurse for 34 years and an academic for 23 years across four universities. In addition to serving as a professor, Moss serves as the associate dean for Nursing and Health Policy. Her career has focused on Indigenous health, aging and policy in the United States and Canada. She was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow and a Fulbright Chair in Indigenous Contexts (McGill University). She authored the award-winning text American Indian Health and Nursing. Moss is an American Academy of Nursing board member, serves on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine board, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. 

Long Term Care Professorship 
in Nursing

The Long Term Care Professorship in Nursing was established to help advance the science and aging of elders or children requiring long-term care.

Bhimani holds both research-focused (PhD) and clinically-focused (DNP) doctorates in nursing—the first individual in Minnesota to do so. Bhimani’s groundbreaking work has identified that spasticity is a cluster of symptoms overlapping with pain and sensory symptoms. She was the first to report that term spasticity was used incorrectly and interchangeably for muscle tightness by both clinicians and patients. With this knowledge, she convened multidisciplinary clinicians to develop a consensus definition of muscle tightness and tested a tool that clinicians can use to assess muscle tightness reliably. Bhimani’s program of research concentrates on neurological disabilities and movement disorders with a focus on spasticity. Her research agenda was ignited during her clinical practice as an APRN.

Hadidi is a board-certified adult health clinical nurse specialist and fellow of the American Heart Association. She is committed to empowering nursing students to have a lasting impact on stroke prevention and the care of stroke survivors. Hadidi has more than 20 years of experience as an advanced practice nurse in neuroscience nursing and served as chair of the Cardiovascular Nursing Subcommittee of the American Heart Association. Her research has focused on using fMRI to localize regions of interest for depression and cognition, and non-pharmacological interventions to improve post-stroke emotional and cognitive outcomes. Her current research evaluates engagement with African American communities to reduce racial disparities in stroke-related outcomes and increase uptake of preventive behaviors.

Talley is co-director of the Minnesota Northstar Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program and strives to improve the care of older people through research, teaching and service. She is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and recognized as a Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing by the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence. Talley investigates interdisciplinary solutions to improve geriatric syndromes and care. She designs and tests interventions to prevent falls and improve urinary incontinence in older populations. She also leads the development of interprofessional educational experiences and resources to train the current and future geriatric workforce.

School of Nursing Foundation Research Professorship

School of Nursing Foundation Research Professorships were established in 2011 by supporters of the University of Minnesota to advance nursing science.

Chevalier McKechnie is committed to addressing a critical gap in meeting the needs of parents who have infants prenatally diagnosed with life-threatening conditions. Her interdisciplinary intervention science involves clinical specialists and an industry leader in patient engagement technology. Supported by multiple grants, including the highly selective MN-REACH program, she developed a technology-based intervention while expanding her skill set related to market dynamics, regulatory processes and commercialization of digital health products. Additionally, her integration of scholarship, teaching and exceptional mentorship have been awarded recognition.