Therese Richmond will receive an Honorary Doctor of Public Service degree during 2024 graduation ceremonies the week of May 13. She was nominated by the University of Maryland School of Nursing.
Therese Richmond is the Andrea B. Laporte Professor of Nursing and the associate dean for research and innovation at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a secondary appointment as professor of nursing in surgery at the university’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Richmond has an extensive program of research aimed at improving recovery from serious injury by addressing the interaction between physical injury and its psychological repercussions. Her research includes a focus on the prevention of violence and firearm violence.
Her research and scholarship are grounded in understanding and overcoming health inequities by individuals and families living in low-resource and marginalized communities. She is committed to identifying and overcoming structural barriers that lead to and reinforce inequities. She partners with community members to examine the impact of living in pervasively violent, low-resource communities on families, and she has rigorously produced data that can be used to inform programmatic initiatives to reduce inequity and improve health, well-being, and safety.
In 1995, Richmond co-founded the Firearm and Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which is now called the Penn Injury Science Center, an interdisciplinary research center that brings together university, community, and government partners around intervention programs with the greatest potential for impact. The center promotes research, training, and the translation of scientific discoveries into practice and policy.
Richmond’s work has been funded by organizations such as the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Nursing Research, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Among her many accolades, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine and received the Episteme Award from Sigma Theta Tau International, the international honor society of nursing, with both honors coming in 2017. She also has won the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.
Richmond received her diploma in nursing from Thomas Jefferson University, her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Delaware, her Master of Science in Nursing from Catholic University of America, and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.