Scholar of the Month
Denice Sheehan
Associate Professor of Nursing
College of Nursing
2007-present
Denice Sheehan is an associate professor in the College of Nursing. Her program of research focuses on adolescents with a parent in hospice. She is especially interested in how adolescents interact with their ill parent and the strategies they use to cope with the changes in their lives during the final months of a parent’s illness and after the death. Sheehan has received major funding for her work from the National Institute of Nursing Research, Sigma Theta Tau International, the Midwest Nursing Research Society, Akron General Health System, as well as internal funding from Kent State University.
In 2013, Sheehan formed the Palliative Care Initiative Group (PCIG) within the College of Nursing with colleagues Dana Hansen and Pamela Stephenson to empower new and junior faculty interested in palliative care and end-of-life research, through mentoring in qualitative research methods, manuscript preparation and grant proposal generation. Undergraduate and graduate nursing students also have been mentored through their work with the group.
Sheehan has published articles in many top peer-reviewed publications, including Psycho-Oncology, Journal of Palliative Medicine and Critical Care Nursing Quarterly. She co-edited one of the first books to guide clinical practice in end-of-life care, “Hospice and Palliative Care: Concepts and Practice.” It was translated into Chinese by an alum of the doctoral program in the College of Nursing, Yin-Yung Hung. Sheehan also has authored book chapters on hospice and palliative nursing, and she serves as an editorial board member of The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing and as a reviewer for Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, Child: Care, Health and Development, Progress in Palliative Care, and Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing.
Before coming to Kent State, Sheehan directed the development of the first graduate nursing program in palliative care in the nation at Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, Ohio. She received both her Ph.D. and Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Akron, and she received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of South Florida.
About Kent State’s Scholar of the Month
Kent State’s Scholar of the Month recognizes faculty researchers and scholars whose recent work has had an important impact on their professional fields and has brought exposure to the university. Each month, a different college will have the opportunity to nominate a researcher/scholar for this recognition. There is also a month when a faculty member from the Regional Campuses will be featured.
The selection process is in the hands of the dean and his or her colleagues and faculty. Hence, this is recognition by the person’s college colleagues that is then taken up by the university. The deans communicate the person’s name to the Division of Research and Sponsored Programs for recognition as Scholar of the Month.