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Dr. Megan Aston is an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University School of Nursing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada where she teaches Family and Community Health Nursing, and Qualitative Health Research. Her passion and expertise is in Family Health Nursing with a focus on maternal, infant and child health. She has conducted numerous research studies examining therapeutic relationships between nurses and families in the community as well as in the hospital. She worked as a public health nurse for many years and now studies postpartum early home visiting by public health nurses with new mothers. She has also focused on 1) queer women’s birthing experiences in rural Nova Scotia; 2) hospital experiences of children with intellectual disabilities, their parents and nurses who take care of them; 3) bereavement care by nurses with families whose child has died; and 4) bereavement care by Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) nurses in the community with families of all ages. She uses feminist poststructuralism to guide her research which includes personal, social, and institutional constructions of the practices of nurses and clients. Read more about her work and publications at http://www.dal.ca/faculty/healthprofessions/nursing/faculty-staff/halifax-faculty/megan-aston.html.  For more information, contact IFNA member Megan Aston: [email protected]

Dr. Erla Kolbrún Svavarsdottir, Professor, University of Iceland and Chairman of the Academic Council of Family Nursing at University Hospital was awarded the prestigious Honorary Scientist Award 2014 at a special ceremony on May 7, 2014 at Landspitali University Hospital, Iceland.  Dr. Svavarsdottir has studied persistence, resilience, coping, health- related quality of life, well-being, violence in intimate relationships, and adaptation and integration in families who are living with chronic diseases in both Iceland and the United States. Dr. Svavarsdottir served as Principal Investigator of the Landspitali University Knowledge Translation Research Project in Reykjavik, Iceland that took place from 2007-2011. Family Systems Nursing (FSN) was implemented at an institutional level on every unit of a large 900-bed university hospital in Iceland. A Steering Committee of nursing practice leaders and knowledge users collaborated in the implementation of the educational intervention focused on teaching practicing nursing the skill of offering brief therapeutic conversations to families. A quasi-experimental design examined family and nurse outcomes across several populations of families in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Mentoring of research skills also involved master and doctoral students in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Iceland who were included in this knowledge translation research. The project also resulted in the psychometric development of two new research instruments: the Iceland-Expressive Family Functioning Questionnaire [ICE-EFFQ]and the Iceland-Family Perceived Support Questionnaire [ICE-FPSQ]. Dr. Svavarsdottir has written over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and she has co-edited two academic books. In addition, Dr. Svavarsdottir has mentored numerous students in the BS program as well as students in master’s and doctoral studies at the Faculty of Nursing , University of Iceland. For more information or to offer your congratulations, contact IFNA member Erla Svavarsdottir: [email protected]

The Research Group in Family Nursing of Escola Superior de Enfermagem do Porto, Portugal, has been involved in research and education related to Family Nursing since 2004. The main purpose of this research group is to promote and support research in nursing family, using a variety of conceptual and methodological frameworks. They have developed a fruitful network with researchers, educators, and practitioners both from Europe (Austria, Germany, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia Spain, Sweden) and overseas (Angola, Brazil, Canada, United States). Beginning in 2007, the group has organized an annual International Symposium to share research findings and innovation in family nursing and has involved graduate students from Master’s and PhD programs in Portugal. In October 2013, the group completed their participation in a 24 month project, “Family Health Nursing in European Communities”, funded by the European Union and coordinated by University of the West of Scotland, Scotland. Eight European countries were involved in this project and the Final Report received an 80% rating from the European Union.  For more information, contact IFNA member Maria do Céu Barbieri Figueiredo: [email protected]