Bolin named associate dean for research at College of Nursing

Jane Bolin, RN, JD, PhD, has been named the new the associate dean for research at the Texas A&M College of Nursing. In her new role, she will focus the college’s research portfolio and help elevate projects in nursing education, forensic nursing and patient care.

With more than three million nurses working in the United States research in and about the profession is vital for improving health care for everyone.

“I feel strongly that educating nurses to not only to be clinically and scientifically excellent, but also as the leaders of tomorrow, will serve to strengthen our U.S. healthcare system to respond to population-based challenges. I love nurses, especially their willingness to serve and give to their patients and communities,” said Bolin, who is a registered nurse and has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Oregon Health Sciences University. “Having spent its first decade building the school for its primary educational mission, the Texas A&M College of Nursing is now poised to take research to the next level. I am impressed with the research ideas and portfolio of the College of Nursing—especially for such a young college. The nurse investigators are extremely enthusiastic about collaborating.”

Nursing research focuses on better ways to care for patients and benefit patient outcomes, including how best to train the next generation of nurses. For example, one interdisciplinary team, including Robin Page, PhD, RN, from the College of Nursing, is studying prenatal genetic testing and the effect of health literacy in Hispanic women.

Other researchers at the college are studying how different wavelengths of light can illuminate otherwise-invisible bruising. These findings will help forensic nurses more accurately gauge how long ago an injury occurred by looking at the bruising under different lights.

Two recent grant awards from the Health Resources and Services Administration highlight the reputation of the College of Nursing as a center of excellence for training nurses to respond to domestic and intimate partner violence. The first, a training grant, will address the severe shortage of trained sexual assault nurse examiners. The second grant will examine differences in rural and urban populations in the prevalence of intimate partner violence nationally.

Bolin will continue in her role as professor at the Texas A&M School of Public Health, where she teaches health law and ethics and human resource management for graduate students. She also serves as director of the Texas A&M Southwest Rural Health Research Center, where she is principal investigator (PI) on a four-year, $2.8 million grant to research critical health issues facing rural populations.

Bolin’s own research focuses on diabetes and chronic diseases, cancer prevention and screening, rural health disparities and health law, regulation and health ethics. She has led several projects, research and interventions for rural and underserved populations nationally and within Texas. She is also co-PI on a recently funded grant to assist vulnerable rural hospitals, as well as co-PI on two Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas grants focusing on colorectal, breast and cervical cancer screening, education and outreach in rural and underserved regions of Texas.

She holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence from University of Oregon in 1982 and a doctorate in health services research from Pennsylvania State University in 2002.