Renowned Researcher Resnick Named Associate Dean for Research

Baltimore, Md. – The University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON) has announced the appointment of Barbara Resnick, PhD ’96, RN, CRNP, FAAN, FAANP, as associate dean for research. Resnick, who serves as the UMSON Sonya Ziporkin Gershowitz Chair in Gerontology; co-director of the postdoctoral program; and University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Distinguished University Professor, assumed the role on Aug. 1.

Resnick will provide leadership and oversight for UMSON’s Office of Research and Scholarship, promoting, maintaining, and expanding UMSON’s research mission. Under her leadership, UMSON will continue to build an infrastructure that supports and facilitates the science conducted by its renowned research faculty. While continuing to develop strong research teams and create synergy and new collaborative opportunities for UMSON researchers with other researchers within UMSON, across UMB, nationally and internationally, Resnick is also focused on increasing research activity among UMSON faculty and helping UMSON researchers manage the increasing regulatory requirements associated with research. 

UMSON nurse researchers focus on topics including substance use, multiomics, health services, health care informatics, pain and symptom sciences, maternal and birth outcomes, end-of-life and palliative care, community health, neuromuscular function, and implementation and dissemination science. Their work addresses a range of critically important clinical areas, with recent study including expanding understanding and management of pain across the lifespan; addressing aging-related issues, focused on optimizing function and physical activity; managing behavioral symptoms associated with dementia; treating depression; optimizing adherence to health behaviors and improving quality of life; and expanding knowledge and use of informatics for providers and other audiences, among other work.

In its more than 130-year history, UMSON has advanced the science of nursing through innovative research, engaging learning, and unwavering community commitment. UMSON researchers produce insights and practices that have a lasting impact on health care delivery across the population lifespan and from the bench to translational research and back. UMSON was ranked 17th among public schools of nursing nationwide in receipt of funding by the National Institutes of Health, with $5.7 million in extramural research funding, for 2021 - 22.

Resnick joined the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine in 1988. Moving to the UMSON faculty in 1993, she developed and directed the School’s master’s-level geriatric nurse practitioner program and its successor, the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner specialty, until 2019. From 2011 until her appointment as associate dean for research, she served as co-director of the UMSON Biology and Behavior Across the Lifespan Research Center of Excellence.

Resnick is nationally and internationally recognized for her research and scholarship. Her research has focused on the care of older adults and optimizing health, function, and physical activity; exploring the impact of resilience and genetics on function and physical activity; and testing dissemination and implementation of interventions in real-world settings, including nursing homes and assisted living facilities. She developed an innovative dissemination and implementation approach to determine how best to achieve change in care behaviors and in clinical outcomes, and her approach to Function Focused Care has been implemented in hundreds of long-term care settings. She has maintained an active practice as a certified gerontological nurse practitioner for over 30 years, caring for older adults in a community continuing care retirement facility as well as in their homes and in assisted living facilities.

Her work has been widely replicated nationally and internationally, and the interventions she has developed have helped to prevent functional decline, improve quality of life, and lower the costs of care for vulnerable older adults. Resnick’s research has been consistently funded, including by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute for Nursing Research, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the John A. Hartford Foundation. 

She has been published widely, including in more than 440 peer-reviewed publications in nursing, medical, and interdisciplinary journals relevant to geriatrics and behavior change. She has also authored more than 60 chapters in nursing and medical textbooks, served as author, editor, or co-editor of 11 books, and delivered more than 220 peer-reviewed presentations at scholarly meetings and numerous invited presentations.

Resnick is highly regarded for her teaching and mentoring of students. Her mentorship was recognized in 2015 with her receipt of the University of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Mentoring. She has actively supported numerous PhD students in nursing as well as social work, pharmacology, and gerontology who secured funding for their dissertation research. As associate dean for research, she will continue to provide mentoring and guidance to the next generation of nurse researchers, both graduate students and junior faculty.

Her impact on practice and policy is far reaching. Her research findings have guided revision of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quality indicators related to activities of daily living and changes in resident function. She regularly heads Technical Expert Panels and advisory groups that set the standard for practice.

Resnick has held numerous leadership positions, including president of the American Geriatrics Society —the first nurse to lead this organization — and president of the Gerontological Society of America. She has been recognized by her peers nationally with awards, including the 2021 William Dodd Founder’s Award from the AMDA-Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care; she was the first non-physician to be recognized by this society representing more than 5,500 medical directors, physicians, nurse practitioners, and others. Also in 2021, she was recognized by the Friends of the National Institute for Nursing Research with the Ada Sue Hinshaw Award, given to an individual “with a sustained and substantive program of science that would afford her/him recognition as a prominent senior scientist.”  Most recently, she was recognized in 2022 as a Distinguished Professor UMB and received the 2022 Elkins Professorship, UMB, with associated project funding.

Resnick is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of American. She has also been inducted into the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame for Sigma, the International Honorary Society of Nursing. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Connecticut, her Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, and her PhD from UMSON.

Resnick succeeds Erika Friedmann, PhD, professor emerita, who retired. In her more than nine years in the role, Friedmann envisioned and developed the role of the Office of Research and Scholarship as a locus for fostering the success of researchers and scholars at different stages in their careers. She created an infrastructure to support all aspects of research, including adding expert assistance with statistics, developing a robust human subjects research quality assurance support system and review process, and collaborating with the DNP program to support the successful development and submission for institutional review of students’ capstone projects. Friedmann also formalized UMSON’s postdoctoral program and served as one of its co-directors. She will continue her grant-funded research, mentoring of PhD students, and service on UMSON doctoral committees on a part-time basis. 

# # #

The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools in the nation and is ranked among the top nursing schools nationwide. Enrolling more than 2,000 students in its baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the School develops leaders who shape the profession of nursing and impact the health care environment.