Linda Davis, PhD, RN
Dr. Linda Davis, an expert in informal family caregiving for the elderly, is a Professor at the Duke School of Nursing (DUSON). A member of the NIH/NINR Study Section on Adults/Older Adults, Dr. Davis has led DUSON's successful standing committee conducting faculty searches. As of July 1, 2006, Dr. Davis has been named the Ann Henshaw Gardiner Professor of Nursing. (Ann Henshaw Gardiner was the first faculty member appointed to the school, working closely with Dean Bessie Baker to create the beginnings of the Duke School of Nursing, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2006.) Before joining DUSON, Dr. Davis served 15 years as a Professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham where she also held the positions of Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Associate Dean for Research Affairs. Dr. Davis was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Fellow in Primary Care, which influenced and shaped her scholarship and research program around aging, chronic illness, and family caregiving in community-based settings. Her contributions to nursing science have been around issues of caregiver stress and coping with chronic illness. Dr. Davis is currently principal investigator for a 5-year, National Institute of Nursing Research funded, clinical trial of interventions designed to improve physical, psychological, social and economic outcomes for caregivers of elders with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Dr. Davis has published more that 50 refereed papers and book chapters on conceptual and methodological issues around family caregiving. She is a manuscript reviewer for various nursing and interdisciplinary journals on topics related to families, chronic illness and caregiving across the lifespan and is a current member of the National Institutes of Health Study Section on Adults and Older Adults research. Dr. Davis received her PhD in Nursing from the University of Maryland in 1985.
