The UNC School of Nursing is grateful to announce the creation of The Dr. Diane Holditch-Davis PhD Research Fund, generously gifted to the School by her husband, Dr. Mark Davis, in memory of Diane. The $100,000 endowed fund will support PhD student research for many years to come.
Dr. Diane Holditch-Davis (September 5, 1951 – June 25, 2022) was passionately invested in nursing science, especially infant and mother health and wellbeing—a topic she had been so enthralled by in a graduate course that she decided to earn her PhD in developmental psychobiology from the University of Connecticut. This passion continued throughout her career, as she focused her research on the observation of parent-child interactions and infant sleep to determine long-term health and developmental outcomes of infants, particularly those who are premature, adopted, seropositive for HIV, medically fragile, and the children of low-income, depressed mothers.
After completing her PhD, Diane, with Mark and their two children, Kimberly and Kevin, made the move to North Carolina where she joined the faculty of the UNC School of Nursing. She worked and taught in Carrington Hall for over 20 years, during which she became a Kenan Distinguished Professor of Nursing and Director of UNC’s Doctoral and Post-Doctoral programs.
In 2006, she joined Duke University’s School of Nursing (where she received her BSN and met her husband Mark in 1969) and created the DUSON Office of Research Affairs, where she mentored faculty and staff as she had at Carolina. In 2007, she was named Associate Dean for Research Affairs and Marcus Hobbs Distinguished Professor of Nursing. Before retiring in 2015, when she was honored as the Marcus E. Hobbs Professor Emerita.
Diane was a highly regarded colleague and teacher. She was a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and received numerous awards, including the 2006 Duke School of Nursing’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Nursing Science, the March of Dimes N.C. Maternal-Child Nurse of the Year Award, and the Award for Excellence in Research from the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses.
During her years here at the UNC SON, Diane’s expertise, dedication and mentorship became an inseparable part of what Carolina Nursing is, and where we are going. This fund will pave the way for new nursing researchers to follow in her footsteps to become inspiring teachers, cutting-edge researchers and Carolina Nurses with their own story to write alongside Diane’s.
Diane was known for saying “think about how many great things we could do if no one worried about who got credit.” It is our privilege to give due credit to her legacy and we are humbled to have been part of it. We are deeply grateful for her family’s gift. Thank you, Diane and Mark.