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Beckman Award Lauds Larson for Inspiring LINK

Columbia Nursing is proud to announce that Professor Emerita Elaine Larson, PhD, has received the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award for 2022. 

The honor is given to educators who inspired their former students to make a significant difference in their community.  

The Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award Trust was established in 2008 by a bequest from Gail McKnight Beckman in honor of her mother, one of the first female psychology professors at Columbia University and the author of multiple books on child and adolescent psychology. 

Eileen Carter, PhD ’14, who worked with Larson to create Linking to Improve Nursing Knowledge (LINK), was one of several former doctoral students who nominated Larson for the award. 

LINK stems from Carter’s work after her graduation from Columbia Nursing, as a nurse researcher with her time divided equally between the nursing school and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.  

This joint role has since expanded into a formal, two-year academic-practice research fellowship welcoming five to eight nurse researchers annually. PhD-prepared nurse faculty serve in the joint nurse researcher role across the nursing school and several health systems, supporting the LINK fellows in their conduct and dissemination of research.  

In 2020, the American Association for Colleges of Nursing honored Columbia Nursing with its New Era award in recognition of the novelty and success of LINK. 

“The vast majority of the clinical projects have resulted in one or more peer-reviewed publications, improved patient care or systems of care delivery, and several of the fellows have now entered doctoral study,” Professor Larson says. “Mentoring is invaluable for any discipline and it is most gratifying to see my former students now as wonderful colleagues who are ‘passing it forward’.” 

“LINK has already had amazing success in translating research into practice, improving the delivery and quality of health care, and breaking down institutional silos that limit collaboration," says Dean Lorraine Frazier, PhD. “I am thrilled to see Professor Larson’s leadership recognized with this award, and that the LINK program she helped inspire at Columbia Nursing continues to grow and thrive.”