New Additions Boost Faculty Roster

The UR School of Nursing bolstered its faculty, opening the fall semester with three new full-time professors.

The school welcomed Kim Arcoleo, PhD, MPH and Kathi Heffner, PhD to the tenure track faculty in July, while Theresa Senn, PhD moved into a full-time primary clinical faculty role.

Arcoleo returns to Rochester as the associate dean for research and director of the Center for Research and Evidence-Based Practice. An associate professor and accomplished researcher specializing in health disparities in children with asthma, she has received Outstanding Researcher awards from both Ohio State University and Arizona State University. Arcoleo earned her master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Rochester and previously worked at the UR School of Nursing from 1989 to 2006. 

Heffner joined the School of Nursing as an associate professor after eight years as a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry, where she still holds a secondary appointment. Her research contributes to the understanding of basic mechanisms of stress and health, with the potential for immediate translation to clinical intervention. Her current NIH-funded projects include: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Family Caregivers of Dementia Patients, and Cognitive Training to Protect Immune Systems in Older Caregivers. She earned her PhD from the University of Nevada and previously worked as an assistant professor at Ohio University.

Senn has been part-time associate professor of clinical nursing at the school since 2014. She previously served as a professor at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, Brown University and Syracuse University. Her research focuses primarily on sexual health, violence, and sexually transmitted infections. She earned her master’s and PhD at Southern Illinois University.

The school has also added two new postdoctoral fellows with plans to promote them to an assistant professor faculty appointment in two years: Jennifer Mammen, PhD, NP-C and Natalie Leblanc, RN, MPH, PhD. Mammen, a 2016 graduate of the UR PhD program, successfully defended her dissertation titled “Teens’ experiences of asthma self-management.” Leblanc earned her PhD from the University of Miami, where her research focused on infectious diseases and public health.