The UIC College of Nursing proudly celebrates recipients of its 2021 Alumni Awards program. The college conferred the 43rd annual Distinguished Alumni Award and honored the fourth class of Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award winners.
TONDA HUGHES, PHD ’89, RN, FAAN, HENRIK H. BENDIXEN PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL NURSING AND ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR GLOBAL HEALTH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NURSING
DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD
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s a young researcher in the early 1990s, Tonda Hughes wanted to study the effects of alcohol on lesbian women’s health. It was an area with little research and the studies that had been done relied on problematic methods. Her advisors discouraged her, saying she might not be able to get funding, publish or earn tenure if she focused on the stigmatized topic. “My well-meaning advisors didn’t think it was a good idea— that I might jeopardize my career,” she recalls. Hughes persevered, and 30 years later, she’s an internationally recognized expert in the field of sexual minority (e.g., lesbian and bisexual) women’s health, with more than $25 million in career research funding. A professor emerita at UIC Nursing, she is the Henrik H. Bendixen Professor of International Nursing and associate dean for global health at the Columbia University School of Nursing. “The idea of really following your passion—even if it isn’t the most popular thing to do—I think that’s so important, and has made all the difference in my life,” Hughes says. Hughes grew up in rural, southeastern Kentucky, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Her parents didn’t have much formal education—her father started working in the coal mines at age 18—but they instilled in their children an “unquestionable respect for education,” Hughes says. Her master’s degree program in community mental health at the University of Kentucky influenced her
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College of Nursing
