Image

The Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation has welcomed seven doctoral trainees into its inaugural cohort of the Strengthening Healthcare Innovation through Nursing and Engineering (SHINE) program, a National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NSF NRT) program that trains nursing and engineering students to work in interdisciplinary teams to focus on healthcare challenges related to patient care.

The first cohort of SHINE students consists of engineering doctoral students Inti Becic, Jasper Cox, Charlotte Tsien, and nursing doctoral students Sarah Caddeo, Diana Chung-Edwards, Danielle Holmes and Desiree Mahon. They are joined by additional SHINE affiliate graduate students already working in nurse-engineer teams who will join parts of the SHINE programming and grow the community.

“Recruiting for such a unique program, we were hopeful that we would be able to not only recruit a full cohort, but also recruit from a competitive pool of applicants. That was definitely the case,” says Frank Sup, co-director of the center and SHINE principal investigator. “The students who joined us this fall all bring a background in their discipline with a desire to work on nurse-engineer teams focused on healthcare innovation and discovery.”

“We couldn’t be more excited to begin our work in SHINE and with our new students,” says Karen K. Giuliano, co-director of the center and SHINE co-PI. “Beyond their academic skills, this cohort brings hands on experience in nursing practice and engineering design, exactly what we wanted for our SHINE cohort.”

The SHINE program was established in the fall of 2025 after a UMass Amherst research team led by 13 faculty from the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation was awarded a $3 million, five-year NSF grant. The NRT grant established the country’s first graduate training program that joins nurses’ experience at the patient’s bedside with engineers’ technological knowledge. Together, nurse-engineer teams work to review, design, and test ideas and designs that can improve patient care and safety.

Recruitment is now underway for the fall 2027 cohort of SHINE. For information, contact [email protected].

More information about the SHINE program can be found on the centers’ website.