The Saint Louis University Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing seeks to develop a community of scholars who conduct innovative research and evidence-based practice to improve health and wellbeing and advance health equity. SLU faculty conduct research across the lifespan and settings from the community to acute care, and nursing education to app development.
Our endowed chairs below are internationally recognized scholars whose contributions have improved care for children with cancer, parents, and older adults. View our complete list of faculty research interests.
Irene Riddle Endowed Chair
Verna Hendricks-Ferguson, Ph.D., RN, FPCN, FAAN
Verna Hendricks-Ferguson's research program has made significant contributions to the pioneering study of palliative and end-of-life (PC/EOL) communication practices by pediatric oncology providers with parents of children with poor prognosis cancer. She is currently MPI for the National Institute of Health R01 grant (RO1CA235632-O1A1) titled: Evaluation of the Communication Plan Early through End-of-Life (COMPLETE) Intervention that is funded for six years from Aug. 1, 2019 to July 31, 2025.
Recent Awards
2024 Distinguished Nurse Researcher Award from the Oncology Nursing Society Organization
Hemak Professor of Maternal-Child Nursing
Denise Côté-Arsenault, PhD, RN, FAAN
Denise Côté-Arsenault, an expert in childbearing family nursing and prenatal care, has made significant contributions to the area of pregnancy after perinatal loss and perinatal palliative care. She has published over 50 works in the field of prenatal care, has been coeditor of “Perinatal Palliative Care: A Clinical Guide” and has extensively researched the strategies to improve care. She has also published works relating to perinatal loss and the effects that it has on mothers' physical and emotional health. As a Fulbright Scholar in 2021, she studied perinatal care in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2024, she was a Fulbright Specialist at the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education in Warsaw, Poland, to improve the midwife researchers’ competencies in qualitative research methods and perinatal palliative care.
Recent Awards
2022 Distinguished Scientist Award from MNRS Palliative Care/End of Life RIIG
2023 Distinguished Investigator Award; Midwest Nursing Research Society Qualitative Methods Research & Implementation
Saint Louis University Research Fellow
Dorothy A. Votsmier Endowed Chair
Cara L. Wallace, Ph.D., LMSW, APHSW-C
Cara Wallace's research is informed by years of social work practice in hospice and hospital systems. Her research focuses on issues related to end-of-life care within three related areas: barriers to care; quality of care; and educating students, professionals and the general population to face issues surrounding death, illness, loss and grief. She has received funding from NIH as PI for an R21 and supplement grant studying live discharge from hospice care. Wallace has more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and has been published or featured in USA Today, Health Affairs Forefront, St. Louis Public Radio, GeriPal Podcast, and The Excerpt.
Recent Awards
2020 Award for Excellence in Psychosocial Research from the Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network
Office of Nursing Research
The Office of Nursing Research supports SLU Trudy Busch Valentine faculty and students to develop research and evidence-based practice projects. We collaborate across the University to identify and provide resources for funding, research training and support to researchers.
The School of Nursing is a member of the Allied Health Research Council that seeks to increase interprofessional collaboration across the health sciences.
The Office of the Vice President for Research supports a Go Center to help with pre- and post-award activities, the Institutional Review Board, and Financial Services for research management.
To discuss research access to the Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing faculty, students or staff or possible collaborative research ventures, contact Helen Lach, Ph.D., associate dean for research, at helen.lach@slu.edu.