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Dear UVA Health Community,

Please join us in welcoming Marianne Baernholdt, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, as 7th dean of the UVA School of Nursing. Dr. Baernholdt is an experienced educator who has devoted her career to mentoring students and junior faculty in safety, quality, innovation and leadership. She comes to us from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Nursing, where she is the associate dean of global initiatives, the interim dean of research and a founding director of its Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization-Collaborating Center in Quality and Safety Education in Nursing and Midwifery. Dr. Baernholdt joins UVA effective August 1, 2022.

Dr. Baernholdt’s appointment marks her return to UVA, where she had previously been a faculty member at the School of Nursing and the School of Nursing’s Department of Public Health Sciences. During her time at UVA, her leadership roles included serving as director of global initiatives for the School of Nursing and director of its Rural & Global Health Care Center. In addition to her time at UVA and UNC, Baernholdt has also served at Richmond’s Virginia Commonwealth University. There she was founding director of the Langston Center for Quality, Safety & Innovation and interim department chair for Adult Health & Health Systems.

Dr. Baernholdt’s research focuses on how quality of care should be defined and the various factors that affect care quality in rural areas around the globe. She has particular expertise in using large databases to track organizational, patient and clinician outcomes.

She is the author of a book, “Nurses Contributions to Quality Health Outcomes,” and numerous articles and book chapters on topics ranging from rural health to quality improvement and workplace bullying. She has been named a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research among a long list of accolades that includes awards for outstanding faculty, outstanding faculty research publication and innovative teaching. 

Dr. Baernholdt earned her PhD in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and her master’s in public health from Columbia University in New York. She earned her MSN in critical care and MPH in international health from Columbia, her bachelor’s in nursing from Pace University in New York, and her diploma in nursing from Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.

As dean of the UVA School of Nursing, Dr. Baernholdt will lead the School of Nursing faculty in advancing the school’s commitment to combining research and scholarship with high-quality clinical education. 

We are also grateful to Dean Pam Cipriano for her years of leadership at the School of Nursing and especially for guiding students, faculty and team members through the evolving challenges of the pandemic. When Dr. Baernholdt joins us in August, she will build on Dr. Cipriano’s tremendous achievements during her time serving as dean of the School of Nursing. The University and the School of Nursing are fortunate to have benefited from her remarkable leadership, and we look forward to celebrating her accomplishments sometime in the near future. Please join us in thanking Dr. Cipriano and welcoming Dr. Baernholdt.

Sincerely,

Ian B. Baucom, PhD
Executive Vice President and Provost, University of Virginia

K. Craig Kent, MD
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, University of Virginia
Chief Executive Officer, UVA Health