UMass Amherst to Establish Nursing, Engineering Graduate Training Program
AMHERST — A UMass Amherst research team led by faculty from the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation (EMCNEI) has been awarded nearly $3 million to establish the nation’s first graduate training program designed to combine nursing’s hands-on patient care with engineering’s technical knowledge.
The five-year U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) award will create SHINE: Strengthening Healthcare Innovation through Nursing and Engineering. In partnership with Baystate Health, this program will tackle some of healthcare’s toughest challenges around the realities of patient care.
Its four main focal areas of work include streamlining healthcare workflow to ensure continuous, quality patient care; leveraging automation and robotics; improving the safety and usability of intravenous (IV) infusion pumps; and developing innovative healthcare products.
Nurses are experts in patient care, but too often they are required to adapt to products and tools designed without their input.
“Most of what nurses have been given are engineered tools,” said SHINE principal investigator Frank Sup, co-director of the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation and professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. “Nearly everything nurses rely on for patient care has been engineered, yet, as the primary end users, they have rarely been included in the design process, leading to workflow inefficiencies and equipment that does not address the realities of clinical practice. We intend to change that.”
The EMCNEI has a successful track record of breaking down barriers between nursing and engineering. Established in January 2021 out of a long history of campuswide nurse-engineer collaboration, the center is now poised to expand its impact, Sup said. With support from the NSF grant, the center will further develop its interdisciplinary training program, with plans to recruit 28 PhD students from both nursing and engineering over the next five years, with the first cohort beginning in fall 2026. Graduates of the program will earn a certificate in healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship, equipping them for careers at the intersection of clinical care, technology and industry.
A fundamental part of SHINE is the partnership between EMCNEI and Baystate Health. By uniting frontline clinical expertise with the interdisciplinary academic resources and research at UMass, the collaboration ensures that new technologies are designed around the realities of patient care.
“This unique nurse-engineer partnership not only drives practical solutions for healthcare challenges in Western Massachusetts, but also serves as a blueprint for healthcare innovation nationwide,” said Karen Giuliano, EMCNEI co-director and joint professor at the Institute for Applied Life Sciences and the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing. “With its focus on usability, safety, and patient-centered design, the partnership has the potential to shape national standards, accelerate the translation of innovation into practice, and improve outcomes for both patients and providers.”