The Best and Worst States for Nursing Professionals

Mary Arends-Kuenning

Associate Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at The University of Illinois

Mary Arends-Kuenning is an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois. She earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan. She is an economic demographer who focuses on household decisions. Her research areas include children’s schooling and labor, household consumption, family planning and international migration.

Anna M. McDaniel

Dean and Professor of the UF College of Nursing

Anna M. McDaniel assumed the role of fifth dean of the UF College of Nursing in July 2013. Having most recently served as Associate Dean for Research at the Indiana University School of Nursing, Dean McDaniel has had an accomplished career advancing nursing science and educating new nursing professionals. Dean McDaniel received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from Ball State University in Indiana and her doctorate in nursing science from Indiana University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in medical informatics from Regenstrief Institute for Health Care. Dean McDaniel has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator on more than $34 million in research grants and contracts and has contributed to more than 120 scientific publications and presentations.

Sarah L. Szanton

Dean of the Johns Hopkin School of Nursing

Sarah Szanton is the fifth dean of the Johns Hopkin School of Nursing. A number of years ago, while making house calls as a nurse practitioner to homebound, low-income elderly patients in West Baltimore, Dr. Szanton noticed that their environmental challenges were often as pressing as their health challenges. Since then, she has developed a program of research at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing on the role of the environment and stressors in health disparities in older adults, particularly those trying to “age in place” or stay out of a nursing home. The result is a program called CAPABLE, which combines handyman services with nursing and occupational therapy to improve mobility, reduce disability, and decrease healthcare costs. She has tested the program's effectiveness through grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Innovations Office at the Center on Medicaid and Medicare Services. She has major funding from the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation to build infrastructure for the CAPABLE program. She has also conducted a study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, of whether food and energy assistance improve health outcomes for low-income older adults. A former health policy advocate, Dr. Szanton aims her research and publications toward changing policy for older adults and their families.

Vincent Guilamo-Ramos

Dean and Professor of the Duke University School of Nursing and Vice Chancellor for Nursing Affairs

Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, Ph.D., MPH, LCSW, RN, ANP-BC, PMHNP-BC, AAHIVS, FAAN, is Dean and Professor of the Duke University School of Nursing and Vice Chancellor for Nursing Affairs, Duke University. In addition, he is the founding director of the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health (CLAFH) at Duke University. Prior to his appointment as Dean in July 2021, Dr. Guilamo-Ramos was a tenured professor at both New York University (NYU) and Columbia University. Most recently, he held faculty appointments in nursing, public health, and social work at NYU. While at NYU, Dr. Guilamo-Ramos also served as Pilot Projects and Mentoring Core director of a NIDA-funded P30 center and as associate vice provost for Mentoring and Outreach Programs, a role in which he developed a university-wide mentoring infrastructure for the advancement of early-career faculty, with particular emphasis on underrepresented faculty. Dr. Guilamo-Ramos is a nurse practitioner dually licensed in primary care (ANP-BC) and psychiatric-mental health nursing (PMHNP-BC) and he is credentialed as an HIV Specialist (AAHIVS) by the American Academy of HIV Medicine. Clinically, he specializes in the primary care of adolescents and adults at elevated risk of or experiencing negative sexual health outcomes, in particular HIV and sexually transmitted infections. Widely regarded as an expert, scholar, and leader in adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health, Dr. Guilamo-Ramos’ research focuses on the role of families in promoting adolescent and young adult health among Latinos and in other underserved communities, with a special focus on preventing HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, and improving care outcomes for youth receiving HIV prevention and care services. For more than 20 years, he has been the principal investigator of numerous National Institutes of Health, (NIH), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Health Resource Service Administration (HRSA), and other federally funded research grants, and has implemented several large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in community and clinic settings. He has published extensively in leading scientific journals, including: The Lancet Infectious Diseases, The Lancet HIV, Clinical Infectious Diseases, JAMA Pediatrics, Pediatrics, and the American Journal of Public Health. Dr. Guilamo-Ramos’ research and scholarship have led to coverage in well-known media sources such as The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post. Dr. Guilamo-Ramos currently serves as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), the HHS Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents, the CDC/HRSA Advisory Committee on HIV, Viral Hepatitis and STD Prevention and Treatment, and he recently completed service on the NASEM Committee on Prevention and Control of STIs in the U.S. He also serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors for the Latino Commission on AIDS, co-chair of the Ending the HIV Epidemic Working Group of the HIV Medicine Association, and as a board member of the Power to Decide. He was inducted as a Fellow into both the American Academy of Nursing and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and he received the Hispanic Health Leadership Award from the National Hispanic Medical Association. Dr. Guilamo-Ramos is a graduate of the 2016 class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, an initiative that draws upon the U.S. presidential centers of Lyndon B. Johnson, George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George W. Bush. These presidential centers have partnered to bring together a select group of leaders who have the desire to advance their leadership strengths in order to help their communities and our country. Dr. Guilamo-Ramos holds a Ph.D. from the University at Albany School of Social Welfare, State University of New York, a Master of Science in Nursing degree from the Duke University School of Nursing, and a post-master’s Advanced Certificate as a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner from the Adelphi University College of Nursing and Public Health. In addition, he holds a Master of Social Work degree from the NYU Silver School of Social Work, a master's degree in management from the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a Master of Public Health degree from NYU School of Global Public Health.

Dr. Pamela B. de Cordova

Associate Professor of Nursing at Rutgers University

Dr. Cordova is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Rutgers University and a nurse scientist for the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing. Her program of research focuses on nursing resources, such as the relationship between staffing and patient outcomes and evaluating public reporting as a mandate to improve nurse staffing. She also led a state-level survey representing 3,000 frontline acute care nurses about their perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic on staffing, the work environment, and burnout.