Nursing

Dr. Jennifer Evans, Assistant Dean and Associate Professor of Nursing, was inducted March 15, 2025, as a Distinguished Fellow of the Nursing Academy in the National Academies of Practice (NAP).

Miranda Wahnsiedler ’11, ’16M is the recipient of the 2025 Award of Excellence in Practice, presented by the Association of Women's Health, Obstetrical and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN). She works as a Perinatal Clinical Nurse Specialist for Labor & Delivery/High Risk Antepartum/OBED/Mother Baby units at Ascension St. Vincent, Evansville.

Southwest Indiana Area Health Education Center (AHEC) presented the 2025 Outstanding Preceptor Award to Valerie Topper, CNM, a 2009 BSN graduate. As the Certified Nurse Midwife at ECHO Community Healthcare, she has welcomed students to learn not only about ECHO, but also the critical importance of providing care to all women as a midwife, regardless of the situation.

Dr. Daniel King '10 has been elected to the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology (AANA) Board of Directors. After graduating with his BSN from USI in 2010, he earned his Master of Nurse Anesthesia in 2016 from Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, School of Health Sciences and a Doctor of Nursing Practice in 2020 from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

Katie Upton, originally from Jasper, Indiana, is a staff nurse at Missouri Baptist Medical Center's Open-heart recovery/CVICU. While a nursing student at USI, she helped plant a seed for a peer tutoring program to boost academic success and morale, an initiative that is still flourishing nine years later.

Dr. Ashley N. Carter ’08 MSN, Assistant Professor of Nursing, has been awarded the 2023 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Indiana League for Nursing (ILN).

All 78 Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students who graduated in May 2023 and took the National Council Licensure Exam (NCLEX®) in June and July have passed on their first attempt.

Upon graduation in 2017, Michael Pennington enlisted in the U.S. Navy as an ensign and is stationed at Walter Reed Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. Michael returned to USI and addressed nursing students with an encouraging message focusing on the broad nursing education that he received that provided him with critical thinking and essential nursing skills.

Anne Kiboi is a 2018 graduate of USI's BSN program. Upon graduation, she returned to her home In Indianapolis to work as a registered nurse in the ICU. Anne speaks highly of the skills she acquired as a student at USI and that she was able to transfer her skills to a very busy intensive care unit with little difficulty.

Alex Gilmore ’17 was named the 2023 Nurse of the Year at Baptist Health Floyd in New Albany, Indiana. She has worked in the hospital's intensive care unit for six years.

Jessica R. Riley, MSN, RN, APRN, AGACNP-BC, has been named Congestive Heart Failure Coordinator at Cape Cardiology Group, located in the Heart Hospital at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. She received her Post-Master’s Certificate as an Acute Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner from University of Southern Indiana in July 2022.

Prior to the USI Nursing White Coat Ceremony on September 11, 2022, Hailey Reas’ mother loaned her something special to wear to remember her family’s legacy of nursing service.