Pamela Z. Cacchione, the Ralston House Term Chair in Gerontological Nursing and a professor of geropsychiatric nursing in the department of family and community health in Penn Nursing, and a nurse scientist at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, will be the 2024 recipient of Penn Nursing’s Norma M. Lang Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy. The award, given every two years to a Penn Nursing faculty member or a graduate from the school’s doctoral program who has made a distinguished contribution to nursing through scholarly practice, honors Norma M. Lang, a professor and dean emerita of Penn Nursing, for her world-renowned contributions to health policy and practice.

Dr. Cacchione, the academic practice partner liaison for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, has a prolific record of clinical practice, research, and scholarship that defines her as an expert with a national and international reputation and as an authority in gerontology, gerontological nursing, and geropsychiatric nursing. For the past six years, she has engaged in human-centered design, innovation research, and product development. She has partnered with robotics engineers interested in older adults and has participated in numerous research studies on robots. Dr. Cacchione’s invention–heart failure monitoring socks–has been honored with many accolades, including winning the inaugural Penn Nursing Innovator Accelerator pitch event in January 2020. 

Dr. Cacchione also has made an impact in policy development, dissemination, and application. She was previously a health and aging policy fellow and worked as a senior advisor with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the PACE Innovation Act and as a community catalyst along with the Pennsylvania Health Access Network. She is an exemplar for integrating evidence-based practice, multidisciplinary research, policy development, and clinically informed pedagogy. 

The eighth Norma M. Lang Lecture honoring Dr. Cacchione will take place on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, from 3:30 p.m. until 5 p.m., location to be determined.