It is my pleasure to announce two new faculty appointments to Duke University School of Nursing's faculty.

Eun-Ok Im, PhD, MPH, RN, CNS, FAAN, currently the Marjorie O. Rendell Endowed Professor at University of Pennsylvania, will join our faculty on June 1, 2016, and will be a member of the Healthcare of Women and Children Division.  Dr. Im is a highly regarded methodologist and theorist in global women’s health, a pioneer in the burgeoning field of ground-breaking Internet research, and her articulation of the new approach of situation-specific theory has been a crucial addition to nursing theory. 

For the past 25 years, she has maintained continuous and significant research funding with more than 40 research grants, including three R01 grants as PI. Dr. Im was just recently awarded a fourth RO1 at NCI that will be sent to Duke University. The impact of her research is reflected in over 350 papers, abstracts, and chapters and 250 multidisciplinary presentations. She is recognized nationally and internationally as an expert in her field and has served on numerous multidisciplinary review groups at the NIH and on editorial and review boards for many prestigious multidisciplinary journals. She is a dedicated teacher and mentor who has influenced the careers of more than 40 doctoral and post-doctoral scholars, 90 undergraduate students, and 47 research assistants. Dr. Im can be reached at eoim512@gmail.com or  eunim@nursing.upenn.edu.

Wonshik Chee, PhD, a consultant with the University of Pennsylvania, will also join our faculty on June 1, 2016, in the Clinical Health Systems and Analytics Division. Dr. Chee earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied mechatronics by developing autonomously driving cars, and has published more than 75 peer-reviewed papers in engineering and nursing science. He started his academic career at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 1999 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

At UWM, Dr. Chee began a research partnership with Dr. Eun-Ok Im, which continues today, on various technology-based research initiatives. Their research and publications on Internet research methodology are among the first early works in nursing that used Internet technologies to build nursing knowledge. Their collaborations have resulted in four NIH-funded R01 programs since 2003. Dr. Chee’s technical expertise includes web application development, decision support software development, system identification of biomechanical systems, and mechatronic system development and he has served as a consultant in this area on various NIH and foundation-funded studies in the U.S. and in other countries including Taiwan and South Korea. Dr. Chee can be reached at wschee@gmail.com.

Thank you to the search committee who guided this process this past fall. And we are delighted that Dr. Im and Dr. Chee will continue their remarkable careers with us and look forward to welcoming them to Duke June 1, 2016.

~ Marion