Kawi granted tenure, distinguished professorship
Professor Jennifer Kawi, PhD, MSN, FNP-BC, CNE, FAAN, has been granted tenure at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston and named a Lee and Joseph Jamail Distinguished Professor.
Kawi joined the school’s Department of Research in January 2024 from The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Her program of research focuses on chronic pain and biobehavioral socioeconomic factors influencing pain, including self-management, pain care disparities, opioid use, pain interventions involving digital health care, and integrative medicine, specifically auricular point acupressure. She served as a multiple primary investigator on studies co-led with the late Professor Chao Hsing Yeh, PhD, RN, FAAN, who was a faculty member at Cizik School of Nursing.
“We are honored that Dr. Kawi chose to join our research faculty and help further this important avenue of research,” said Associate Dean for Research Constance M. Johnson, PhD, MS, RN, FAAN, who is the Maria C. and Christopher J. Pappas Family Distinguished Chair in Nursing and also a Lee and Joseph Jamail Distinguished Professor.
Kawi was a tenured associate professor at UNLV and maintained a part-time nurse practitioner practice with a specialty in pain management. She also served as director of the school’s DNP and PhD program, coordinator of the UNLV Center for Biobehavioral Interdisciplinary Sciences, and was a guest researcher at the National Institute of Nursing Research. Previously, she worked as a nurse in Las Vegas-area hospitals and as a nurse practitioner and administrator at the Las Vegas Pain Institute, Spring Valley Surgery Center, and a federally qualified health center.
Kawi earned her PhD from The University of Colorado College of Nursing in Denver, her Master of Science in Nursing on the family nurse practitioner track from UNLV, and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Saint Louis University School of Nursing in Baguio City, Philippines.
