February 15, 2006

CCGS faculty member and Associate Professor Marcia Van Riper was officially granted tenure in the School of Nursing (SON) as of January 2006.  Dr. Van Riper holds a PhD in nursing/psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a master’s degree in bioethics from Case Western Reserve University.  She was an assistant professor for six years at The Ohio State University and then moved to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2001 as an associate professor (without tenure). One of her main roles in the SON is to help integrate genetics into the undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula.  In addition to developing and teaching two courses (Genetics in Nursing Practice and Genomics and Society), she gives guest lectures on genetics in a variety of other courses. As part of CCGS, Dr. Van Riper has been instrumental in bringing together diverse groups of faculty across campus to address the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomic research. One of these efforts has resulted in a planning grant for a Center of Excellence in ELSI Research funded by NHGRI/NIH.  Dr. Van Riper’s work was recently featured in “Research Chronicle,” an annual report published by the School of Nursing (view pdf).