Nursing Science Ph.D. student Meghan Monney has been selected from a pool of nursing students throughout the United States to receive the prestigious Jonas Scholarship.

According to the National League for Nursing website, the Jonas Scholarship promotes “evidence-based nursing education and the scholarship of teaching.”

“One of the goals of the Jonas Scholarship is to improve the health of veterans by supporting doctoral-level nursing candidates committed to advancing veterans’ health care,” explained Dr. Maria Danet Lapiz-Bluhm, Meghan’s mentor for the Jonas Scholarship.

Meghan’s research focus is on resilience of military spouses during deployment. She hopes to understand the mental health issues relevant to military families, and to inform future interventions to improve their health.

“Military spouses go through a lot of change during the deployment of their significant others,” Monney explained. “Some people were really successful dealing with the problems, where some went down a rough path where they attempt to commit suicide, became an alcoholic…”

Meghan explains that her research is unique because she is focusing mainly on minority military spouses. She hopes to be conducting through surveys from military units Fort Hood and Fort Bliss who are currently housing military spouses.

“There has not been any research done on minorities, the majority of the research samples are on Caucasian military spouses,” she said. “Hispanics tend to have religiosity, which is not currently reflected in the research.”

Monney’s goal is to identify the risk and protective factors that separate spouses who have successfully overcame the stressors related to the deployment of the service member, and those who have not.

She has been a nurse for over 22 years. She is experienced in hospital, chemotherapy, dialysis, and home health nursing. She is now a teaching assistant in the undergraduate nursing program.

Teaching is one of her biggest passions, “I love watching the light goes on in other people’s lives”

Monney is pursuing her Ph.D. in Nursing Science so she can become faculty in a undergraduate nursing program.

“Meghan is an ideal mentee to work with. She is hardworking, intelligent, open-minded, and responds well to suggestions and advice. Meghan makes mentorship easy,” Dr. Bluhm said.

Due to national nursing shortages, Dr. Bluhm encourages nursing students to also pursue a Ph.D. degree.

“It is important for nurses to get a Ph.D. in Nursing Science because these individuals will ensure that the United States will have the needed faculty pool to educate the next generation of nurses, nurse leaders, nurse clinical scientists, advanced practice nurses, and nurse faculty” Dr. Bluhm said.

This article was written by Yi-Ting Chung, communications intern at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UT Health San Antonio. Chung is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Public Relations with a minor in Business Administration at The University of Texas at San Antonio.