Auburn University School of Nursing welcomes Dr. Pao-Feng Tsai as the new Associate Dean for Research. Tsai comes to Auburn after serving more than 20 years as an endowed professor in geriatrics in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
Tsai earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1984 at the Kaohsiung Medical College’s School of Nursing in Taiwan and her Master of Science in public health in 1987 at the Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming Medical College, Taiwan. She also earned her Master of Science in Nursing in 1996 as well as her doctorate, in 1998, at Wayne State University’s College of Nursing.
Prior to working at UAMS, she was a research assistant in the Institute on Gerontology and a research associate in the College of Nursing at Wayne State University in Detroit. She has worked as a staff nurse at the Taipei Mackay Memorial Hospital, as a Fellow of the Home Health Care Program at the Department of Health, and as an instructor at Deh-Yu Nursing College, all in Taiwan.
“I am honored to be in Auburn,” Tsai said. “My central mission here, in Auburn, will be to assist faculty members with research, help them apply for grants as Principal Investigators, and facilitate their participation in research or other scholarship projects in their area of interest,” she added.
She has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on several NIH and private foundation funded grants, and has authored several manuscripts and editorials. Her main focus was research in the area of pain, especially in the elderly who suffer from dementia and osteoarthritis.
“My goal has always been to make a difference by improving geriatric pain care through innovative research,” Tsai said. “I would like to assist them and identify intervention to help ease their pain.”
Tsai was recently inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She is a member of the International Association for the Study of Pain, American Nurses Association, Southern Nursing Research Society, Gerontological Society of America, and Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.
In her spare time, Tsai enjoys reading, playing with her dogs, gardening and dancing. Tsai and her husband, Dr. Jason Chang, (retired professor of Neurobiology and Development Sciences in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) will reside in Auburn.