Alumni Profile: Nancy Dianis
By Patrick Broadwater
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
A clinician and educator with more than 40 years of experience, Nancy Dianis ’85N (MS) heads up clinical trials, epidemiologic research, and global health projects on a wide range of conditions for Westat, a multimillion dollar corporation providing research services to businesses, foundations, and government agencies.
She currently serves as Westat’s principal investigator, project director, and project manager on many clinical trials and clinical studies of HIV and TB infection, other emerging infectious diseases, cancer, blood-transmitted diseases, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, and trauma and is also principal investigator and corporate officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Tuberculosis Trials Consortium.
“The goal is take information from bench to bedside for treatments that consider differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles,” said Dianis, who joined Westat in 2001. “It’s dynamic and cutting-edge science.”
Dianis was recognized in 2018 by the UR School of Nursing with its Distinguished Alumni Award.
An RN and educational specialist focusing on surgical, coronary, and medical intensive care, Dianis began her career as a nurse at McHenry Hospital outside of Chicago. She later moved to Rochester, where she served as associate clinical chief for medical nursing at Strong Memorial Hospital and instructor of clinical nursing at the UR School of Nursing. She went to serve as nursing service chief for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center and director of medical and psychiatric nursing for Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
From 1985 to 2014, she held adjunct faculty positions at nursing schools at the University of Rochester, George Mason University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Maryland.
She was recognized in 1996 by the NIH with the Nursing Department’s Director’s Award, and received the CDC’s HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention Award in 2006.
Dianis received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Illinois Wesleyan University. She earned her master’s degree through the Adult Primary Nurse Practitioner Program from the University of Rochester.