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About Dean Allan
Janet D. Allan, PhD, RN, CS, FAAN
Dean and Professor
Dr. Janet D. Allan was appointed dean of the University of Maryland School of Nursing in June 2002. She previously served as dean and professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, School of Nursing.
In her national role, Dean Allan serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), and is its representative on the multidisciplinary Healthy People Curriculum Task Force. She previously served as the AACN Grassroots Liaison for Maryland, and served on former Congressman Ben Cardin’s Health Advisory Committee. She was a member of the AACN Task Force that developed the Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice. Dean Allan also served as a member of the Board of the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research. She is a past member of a Robert Wood Johnson Advisory Panel, where she served on a five-year project, “Prescription for Health.” Dean Allan was vice-chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 1998 to 2004, and served as the lead spokesperson on topics such as breast cancer screening, hormone replacement therapy, and adult obesity. She formerly served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Nursing. Dean Allan has been president of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF), which doubled its membership under her direction, and president of the Southern Nursing Research Society, which experienced similar growth under her leadership. Dean Allan was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women in 2004, and again in 2006. In 2002, she received Nurseweek magazine’s Nursing Excellence Award for service to the profession, and also received the NONPF Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, she received the Southern Nursing Research Society Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award. Since her arrival in Maryland, Dean Allan has led her peers and collaborated with health care providers to develop the Nurse Support Program II, which, in 2005, received $8.8 million in funding for a 10-year period to support initiatives to help alleviate the state’s shortage of nurse faculty and bedside nurses.
Dean Allan holds a PhD in medical anthropology from the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley. Her research focuses on weight management of women across ethnic populations. She conducted one of the first studies in the nation on the comparison of women from different ethnic groups’ practices, values, and beliefs about weight and how to manage it. She has also studied the problems of living with HIV, and was instrumental in the creation of a hospice for HIV patients, which serves as a national model. As a result, Dr. Allan was one of nine nurses in the nation honored by the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health for contributions to the care of people with AIDS and HIV infection.
Dean Allan has published nearly 125 articles, book chapters, and abstracts. She is interviewed regularly by both print and electronic media on the nursing shortage, the nursing faculty shortage, breast cancer screening, hormone replacement therapy, weight management in women/obesity, and her role as dean of the School of Nursing.
The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools, and is ranked seventh nationally. Enrolling more than 1,400 students in its baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the School develops leaders who shape the profession of nursing and impact the health care environment.