Ashleigh Harlow Named University Scholar, James B. Duke Fellow

PhD student Ashleigh Harlow has received the University Scholars Fellowship and James B. Duke Fellowship.

The University Scholars Fellowship program is designed to stimulate an interdisciplinary, intergenerational community of scholars, while the James B. Duke Fellowship aims to attract and develop outstanding scholars at Duke. Both programs offer stipends, while the University Scholars program also provides tuition and fee support.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to be selected for such prestigious awards and to represent the School of Nursing through these two fellowships,” Harlow said. “I see excellence every day at DUSON and across Duke, so I am incredibly humbled to have been selected and am really excited to have the opportunity to bring a nurses’ perspective to these interdisciplinary groups.”

Harlow earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2008 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her master's certificate in 2017 from George Washington University’s Master Teacher Leadership Development Program for educators in academic medical settings.

She is currently part of the School’s 2020 PhD cohort. It was the program’s cohort structure, in addition to the program’s faculty members and strenuous nature, that made Harlow certain that Duke was the ideal place to further her nursing education.

“Knowing I had a deep bench of experts to learn from as well as a supportive group of peers to go through the PhD program experience alongside sealed it for me,” she said. “I want to come out of my doctoral preparation ready to contribute to the science of nursing in a meaningful way.”

Harlow chose to pursue nursing as career due to her aspiration to work in the sciences while also helping others.

“Nursing is the perfect blend of humanities and science,” she said. “All the science we create, learn from, and practice is in service of humans and of humanity at large. Nursing is unique in the way we seek to understand and affect the human condition and experience through holistic, person-centered care and healing.”

Harlow began her career as a direct care nurse in the Children's of Alabama hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit. She has practiced at several children's hospitals across the country and served subsequently as a direct care nurse, nurse educator, and nurse manager in the cardiac intensive care unit at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Her background also includes two cardiac surgical mission trips to Morocco and Uganda, where she mentored local staff nurses recovering complex pediatric congenital and rheumatic heart surgical patients.

“I hope to encourage and mentor future nursing scholars, so they may ‘carry the torch’ of our discipline,” she said.

Harlow currently wants to serve in a direct care role while also conducting research involving children with critical congenital heart disease and their parents.

“Regardless of the path my career takes me, I know my personal values align with remaining connected to the experiences of these patients and their families in the hospital setting,” she said. “If my research or research that I contribute to advances the way we care for these kids, I will think of that as a major win.”