Georgia CTSA Trainee Wins March of Dimes Georgia Community Health Nurse of the Year

Erin Ferranti, PhD, MPH, RN, FAHA, assistant professor of nursing, Emory University, and Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance’s (Georgia CTSA) Certificate Program in Translational Research trainee, was recently awarded the March of Dimes Georgia Nurse of the Year in the category of Community Health.

These awards honor extraordinary nurses who go above and beyond to deliver compassionate care in hospitals, NICUs, clinics, or home visits. The awards are based on patient and patient-family nominations. Whether serving as a health care provider, educator, researcher, or chapter volunteer/advisor, nurses play a critical role in improving the health of Georgia's residents. The March of Dimes is the leading nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health. With chapters nationwide, it works to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

Ferranti is a public health nurse and cardiometabolic nurse researcher and educator whose program of research is focused on identifying the role of the gut microbiome and effective dietary strategies to mitigate cardiometabolic risk burden in women of childbearing age who have had cardiometabolic complications during pregnancy. She is also an Emory Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) scholar. 

“There is close collaboration between the K12-BIRCWH program and the Georgia CTSA certificate program, which provides the didactic training component of the BIRCWH,” said Igho Ofotokun, MD, MSc, professor of infectious disease, Emory University School of Medicine, program director, BIRCWH, and Georgia CTSA Research Education Program graduate and leader. 

The Emory BIRCWH, is a highly selective career development program for junior faculty interested in women's health research and/or sex/gender science. The ultimate goal of the BIRCWH program is to train junior faculty, through a mentored research and career development experience, to become independent investigators who use novel, interdisciplinary approaches to advance the science of women’s health and sex/gender research. The program is accepting applications until March 1.

The Certificate Program in Translational Research is ideal for a researcher looking to gain the skills to translate their findings from the laboratory to the bedside and into the community. The program is a multidisciplinary program for PhD students, postdocs, residents, fellows, and faculty who seek to conduct research at the interface between basic science and clinical medicine.

The Georgia CTSA is a statewide partnership between Emory University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Institute of Technology, and University of Georgia and is one of over 50 in a national consortium striving to improve the way biomedical research is conducted across the country. The consortium, funded through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards, shares a common vision to translate laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients, engage communities in clinical research efforts, and train the next generation of clinical investigators.