Three at Columbia Nursing Named NEF Scholars

Students Kelsey Baffour-Addo, MS ’22, Danica Dorlette, MPH, and Keisha S. Paul, MS ’23, have received scholarships from Nurses Educational Funds (NEF), Inc., for 2024-2025. 

Founded in 1912, NEF promotes leadership and health equality through annual scholarships to nurses seeking master’s and doctoral degrees in nursing education, advanced clinical practice, research, health policy, and administration. To date, NEF has awarded more than 1,460 scholarships for advanced nursing degrees. 

Baffour-Addo, a second-year student in the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Program, received the NEF Allison Adams Wieczorek Scholarship for Maternal-Infant and Pediatric Nursing. She currently works as a registered nurse, delivering safe and compassionate care to mothers and newborns. Her academic work has focused on women’s health outcomes, including research on postpartum mood disorders and strategies to reduce disparities in maternal mortality. 

Dorlette, a PhD student, received the 2024 Johnson & Johnson Edwidge Thomas Health Equity Scholarship. Her research focuses on the role of residential environments in oncologic patient outcomes and health services utilization. She is currently a nurse clinician on a bone marrow and stem cell transplant unit, where her innovations for humanizing care and improving patient and family experiences have been recognized as “best practices” by the Joint Commission.  

Paul, a first-year Midwifery Program student, was awarded the Columbia University — Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association Inc./J. Margaret Ada Mutch Scholarship. She is a school nurse at C2 Staffing Solutions, providing clinical care to students in New York City private schools. In her previous position as a clinical research coordinator, she published several papers focused on reproductive health.