Meagan Whisenant, PhD, APRN, has been named the John S. Dunn, Sr., Distinguished Professor in Oncology Nursing at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston, effective retroactively as of January 1, 2023.

“Dr. Whisenant is an exemplar of excellence in nursing science. She is sought after by colleagues locally and across the nation for her innovative research in symptom management in cancer and HIV/AIDS,” said Dean Diane Santa Maria, DrPH, MSN, RN, FAAN. “In her brief time as an assistant professor at Cizik School of Nursing, her work has been funded by internal grants, foundations, the Texas Development Center for AIDS Research, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, and the National Institutes of Health. In addition, she was recently featured in a presentation to the White House Cancer Moonshot leadership.”

Whisenant’s connections in the Texas Medical Center go back to 2003, when she joined The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Brain and Spine Center as a clinical nurse after earning her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from New York University. She worked at MD Anderson while earning her Master of Science in Nursing as a family nurse practitioner at Cizik School of Nursing. She later moved to Salt Lake City, where she completed a National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Graduate Partnerships Program fellowship and worked as a graduate research assistant while earning her Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing from the University of Utah. There, Whisenant also completed a post-master’s certificate in education and an NINR T32 postdoctoral fellowship in cancer, aging, and end-of-life care before returning to MD Anderson in 2017 as a postdoctoral fellow. She joined Cizik School of Nursing as an assistant professor in 2020 and continues her collaborations at MD Anderson as a visiting research collaborator.