Leading up to UMB’s commencement on May 18, The Elm will feature stories on the ceremony’s student speaker and honorees. For more information, go to UMB’s Commencement 2023 website. Read about all the honorees at this link.
HONORARY FACULTY MARSHAL
Erika Friedmann, PhD
Professor and Associate Dean for Research
School of Nursing
Erika Friedmann has made her mark on the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON) for 20 years, arriving in 2003 as a professor in the Department of Organizational Systems and Adult Health and becoming associate dean for research in 2015. She will retire as associate dean in August but remain a part-time faculty member.
Friedmann is an internationally recognized researcher in anthrozoology, the scholarly investigation of human-animal interaction. Her 1980 paper, “Animal Companions and One-Year Survival of Patients After Discharge from a Coronary Care Unit,” was the first to document the long-term psychological and physical contribution of pet ownership to physical health in older adults. As a result of this and subsequent work, most hospitals and nursing homes have animal visitation programs and/or facility dogs.
“I’m proud of having made an important contribution to the development and legitimization of human-animal interaction research,” Friedmann said. “I’ve been conducting research addressing the relationship of human-animal interaction to human health ever since I began my research career.”
Friedmann was a founding member and first president of the International Society of Anthrozoology (ISAZ), which was created in 1991 to foster the scientific and scholarly study of human-animal interaction. In 2016, she was elected a fellow of ISAZ and was the inaugural recipient of the International Association of Human-Animal Interaction Organizations’ Johannes Odendaal Human-Animal Interaction Distinguished Research Award. In 2019, she received ISAZ’s Distinguished Anthrozoologist Award for lifetime achievement.
“Dr. Friedmann is a pioneer in anthrozoology, and her research and scholarship reflect her broad interest in the interaction of social, psychological, and physiological factors in health and health-related behavior,” said Jane M. Kirschling, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Bill and Joanne Conway Dean of the School of Nursing. “She also has done a remarkable job envisioning and developing the role of the Office of Research and Scholarship as a locus for fostering the success of UMSON researchers and scholars at varying stages in their careers.”
Friedmann has served as a mentor to junior faculty, providing grant and scholarly writing seminars, teaching research methods and statistics, and serving on more than 50 doctoral dissertation committees.
“I take a lot of pride in the PhD students I’ve mentored who have become researchers and academics. It’s wonderful to see them flourish,” said Friedmann, who received her bachelor’s degree and PhD in biology from the University of Pennsylvania.
“With all of the effort required to conduct research and scholarship, it can become overwhelming,” she added. “Since research and scholarship is one of the most important missions of UMSON, reducing barriers, assisting in the development of collaborations, and providing resources to enhance quality are very important ways we can assist faculty.”