Debra Brandon along with former Postdoctoral Associate Jinhee Park received the inaugural Eastern Nursing Research Society Nursing Research Authorship Award for their paper entitled "Factors Associated With Feeding Progression in Extremely Preterm Infants." The paper was published in the May/June 2015 issue of Nursing Research. 

They were chosen for the award because of the high quality of their contribution. According to the editor of the publication, Susan Henly, their paper provided new knowledge about a challenging clinical issue in the nursing care of vulnerable premature infants and although the research problem was complex, findings will be accessible to a wide range of readers because the paper was so well written and prepared.