SARAH ELIZABETH ALLISON, Class of 1953, was an innovator who devoted her life and career to Dorothea Orem’s groundbreaking theories of patient self-care matched with nursing support to maximize healing.
While a graduate student in Washington, DC, Allison began working with Orem on the latter’s Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory, bringing its tenets to the Wilmer Eye Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital as clinical director of nursing in the mid-1970s. In 1991, Allison helped found the International Orem Society for Nursing Science and Scholarship. Her continuing research included the preservation of the Dorothea Orem Collection at the Chesney Medical Archives.
Born in Baltimore in 1925, Allison died in June 2017 in Jackson, MS. Her funding for this endowed professorship confirms Johns Hopkins Nursing’s commitment to quality, patient-centered care that maintains dignity and independence.
Held by Cheryl R. Dennison Himmelfarb
CHERYL DENNISON HIMMELFARB, PhD, RN, ANP, FAAN, FAHA FPCNA, is the Associate Dean for Research at the School of Nursing’s Office for Science and Innovation. Her sustained passion and commitment to reducing health disparities and improving the quality of care and outcomes for cardiovascular and critical care patients is seen as a consistent thread throughout her progressive program of research, professional practice, and teaching. Research by Dr. Himmelfarb, recently enshrined in the STTI Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame, has led to the development of effective and transferable health system and interdisciplinary team-based strategies to improve the quality of cardiovascular care. Dr. Himmelfarb’s scholarship has contributed to a greater understanding of social and cultural determinants of cardiovascular risk, particularly among black and resource-limited populations. Additionally, as a deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translation Research, she leads the Research Participant and Community Partnership Core, a program that has enhanced research participant experience and promoted best practices for research participant recruitment and retention and community-engaged research at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Himmelfarb has served on numerous National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association expert panels that have generated scientific statements and national clinical guidelines to reduce health disparities and improve the quality of cardiovascular care. Dr. Himmelfarb has been prolific in her efforts to translate and disseminate this research to both scientific and clinical audiences, thus she has informed future research and policy efforts while driving improvements in current clinical practice and patient outcomes.
