Cancer Nurse Scientist Named to Prestigious Endowed Chair

The University of South Florida College of Nursing, in collaboration with the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation, has named Constance Visovsky, PhD, RN, ACNP, FAAN, as the Lewis and Leona Hughes Endowed Chair in Nursing Science. The endowed chair is one of the most prestigious faculty positions at the University of South Florida and was established to honor Lewis and Leona Hughes’ generous support of Sarasota Memorial Hospital and nursing care in the Sarasota community. This endowed chair is awarded to an individual widely recognized for making significant contributions to scholarship.

Additionally, the position helps address critical faculty shortages in academic health centers that threaten the nation’s health professional educational infrastructure, limiting student capacity at a time when the need for professional registered nurses continues to grow. The endowed chair is a full-time, five-year, tenured position that contributes to the research, teaching, and service missions of the college.

A renowned researcher and nurse scientist, Dr. Visovsky is known for her expertise in oncology, physical activity and exercise, and is using this expertise to address the neurotoxic and myotoxic effects of chemotherapy. In 2019, she was awarded a $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute to study whether a home-based exercise regimen to help improve gait and balance and strengthen muscles could lessen adverse neuromuscular effects that many breast cancer survivors face after chemotherapy.

For her outstanding accomplishments, she earned the Global Achievement Award from the university in 2016 and was named a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. In 2018, she was named a Fulbright Global Research Scholar and, through that grant, conducted research that characterized breast cancer in Panama.

Dr. Visovsky has been a member of the faculty at the USF College of Nursing since 2011 and was promoted to the rank of professor in 2019. Over the years, she has held a joint appointment with the USF College of Pharmacy and served as associate dean of Student Affairs, university Title IX deputy coordinator, and director of Diversity for the College of Nursing.

Prior to her roles at USF, she held faculty positions at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University, the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, and Corning Community College. She also practiced as an acute care nurse practitioner at the University Hospitals of Cleveland and the Nebraska Medical Center.

Dr. Visovsky earned her PhD in nursing from Case Western Reserve University after earning her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in nursing from the University of Rochester.

Through her work, Dr. Visovsky is educating the next generation of nurses and leading the way in health determinants and precision science.