Congratulations to Sharron Docherty on being appointed as Director for the PhD in Nursing Program, effective July 1, 2018. 

Thank you to Debra Brandon for her numerous contributions to the PhD Program as director from 2011-2017 and Janice Humphreys for her service as interim director over the last few months.

Currently, Docherty is Associate Professor at DUSON and Senior Scientist in the Oncology Nursing Center of Excellence at the Duke Cancer Institute. At DUSON, she teaches in the PhD Program primarily, mentors PhD and DNP students, and chairs the PhD Program Committee. Most recently, she served as Director of the ADAPT Center for Excellence in Cognitive/Affective Symptom Science. Previously, she chaired the PhD Program Admissions Committee, served on the Faculty Executive Committee, and represented the PhD Program on the Curriculum Pathways Initiative Task Force charged with redesigning an integrative curriculum across DUSON programs.

Docherty joined DUSON in 2002 to develop and lead a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Specialty in Acute and Chronic Care (AC-PNP) and served as the Specialty Director of that program until 2010, during which time it was the only program in the state and ranked third nationally by US News & World Report.

In 2004, she served on the Steering Committee for the development of the PhD Program and went on to develop one of its first new courses called Philosophy of Science and Theory Development.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, she is also a member of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, the Society for Research in Child Development, the Southern Nursing Research Society, and Sigma Theta Tau. She received her BScN from the University of Windsor, her MScN from the University of Western Ontario, and earned her PhD in Nursing at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Please join in welcoming Docherty to this important position.

Elizabeth I. Merwin, PhD, RN, FAAN​ Ann Henshaw Gardiner Professor of Nursing Executive Vice Dean of the School of Nursing