Zalon Inducted as American Academy of Nursing Fellow
Margarete Lieb Zalon, Ph.D., professor of nursing at The University of Scranton, was inducted as an American Academy of Nursing Fellow.
The American Academy of Nursing inducted 116 nurse leaders, including Margarete Lieb Zalon, Ph.D., professor of nursing at The University of Scranton, as Fellows during the academy’s 37th annual meeting and conference held in November in Washington, D.C.
“Selection for membership in the Academy is one of the most prestigious honors in the field of nursing,” said Academy President Catherine L. Gilliss, DNSc, RN, FAAN. “Academy Fellows are truly experts. The Academy Fellowship represents the nation’s top nurse researchers, policymakers, scholars, executives, and practitioners.”
Selection criteria include evidence of significant contributions to nursing and health care. Each nominee must be sponsored by two current Academy Fellows. The new Fellows are selected by a panel comprised of elected and appointed Fellows, and selection is based, in part, on the extent to which nominees' nursing careers influence health policies and health care delivery for the benefit of all Americans. New Fellows will be eligible to use the credentials FAAN (Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing) after their November induction.
A resident of Waymart, Dr. Zalon’s leadership legacy includes grassroots advocacy, progressive program design, execution, and outcomes in state and national nursing organizations focused on establishing practice and education policy, and building research funding capacity. These activities have made a unique impact on the work of the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association (PSNA), American Nurses Credentialing Center, American Nurses Association (ANA) and the American Nurses Foundation (ANF).
As PSNA president, her legislative testimony helped secure the first nurse appointee to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, an agency that has propelled the state to be a leader in public outcomes reporting.
As ANF board chair, she strengthened the philanthropic initiatives and the premier grants program that launched the careers of many nurse researchers. She dramatically increased ANF’s visibility and ability to fund promising new investigators, doubling its funding partners and more than doubling its grant awards. She worked to augment support for the AAN/ANF/ANA Institute of Medicine Scholar-in-Residence program, ensuring nurse leaders are active participants in policy discussions. Dr. Zalon’s efforts in tracking National Institutes of Health funding obtained by ANF Scholars documents the value of seed money for nursing research.
Dr. Zalon is the chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the American Nurses Foundation. She is a recipient of the Duke University School of Nursing Distinguished Alumna Award, the PSNA Distinguished Nurse Award and a Leahy Fellowship at The University of Scranton.
Dr. Zalon joined Scranton’s faculty in 1988 as an assistant professor in the Department of Nursing, and was named an associate professor in 1994. In 2000, she was promoted to full professor. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles and publications, and has presented at many professional conferences.
Dr. Zalon received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University and her master’s and Ph.D. in nursing from New York University. She is certified as a clinical nurse specialist in adult health nursing.
