National Award for Penn Nursing Professor
The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) honors Therese Richmond, PhD, RN, FAAN, with its 2023 Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career.
Richmond, the Andrea B. Laporte Professor of Nursing and Associate Dean for Research & Innovation at Penn Nursing, first joined the faculty at the nursing school in 1997 as an Assistant Professor of Trauma & Critical Care Nursing. Throughout her career, she has been honored for her contributions as a researcher, scholar, educator and mentor.
She co-founded the Firearm and Injury Center at Penn over two decades ago, which is now the interdisciplinary Penn Injury Science Center, with involvement from all 12 Penn schools. She currently serves on the center’s executive committee and directs its research core. The center’s scope has grown to encompass opioid overdose, violence, older adult falls, trauma systems, concussion and traumatic brain injury, road traffic injury, and the physical and social environment.
Richmond earns the award for her exceptional contributions, which enhance the care of critically ill patients and their families and the nurses who care for them, and further AACN’s mission and vision. The presentation will occur during the 2023 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition in Philadelphia, May 22-24.
“Sparked by her experience as a trauma nurse, Dr. Richmond took a holistic approach to traumatic injuries, looking beyond the individual patient. Her work has informed initiatives and policies that address systemic issues, health disparities, social justice and survivors’ quality of life,” said AACN President Amanda Bettencourt, PhD, APRN, who is also on the faculty at Penn Nursing. “She has worked tirelessly to elevate the way we view violence and injuries to better understand how these injuries happen, why they happen where they do, how they psychologically affect the victims, and how to prevent them in the first place.”
She served on the federal advisory committee to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for the National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2030. Richmond serves on the Board of Population Health and Public Health Practice at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
AACN also honored Richmond in 2005 for her research and again in 2008 with the Pioneering Spirit Award.
Richmond earned a diploma from Thomas Jefferson University School of Nursing, Philadelphia, before graduating from the University of Delaware with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. She attended Catholic University of America for a master’s degree in nursing and earned a PhD and post-master’s certificate as a nurse practitioner from the University of Pennsylvania.