Debra Erickson-Owens, CNM, PhD, of North Kingstown, has been named Nurse Midwife of the Year by Rhode Island Monthly magazine. Erickson-Owens is a research scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at Women & Infants Hospital and an associate professor at the University of Rhode Island, and is co-principal investigator of the Infant Brain Study, through which researchers are examining brain development during the first two years of life in babies who have immediate umbilical cord clamping compared to those who have delayed cord clamping.
A graduate of Boston University, Erickson-Owens earned a masters degree in nurse- midwifery at the University of Utah, a post masters certificate in nursing education at the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in nursing at the University of Rhode Island.
Erickson-Owens was a practicing certified nurse midwife for more than 30 years, during which time she helped more than 1,400 women give birth. She served as an active duty U.S. Air Force Nurse Corp officer and midwife for 20 years. In 1998, she joined the URI faculty in the Graduate Nurse-Midwifery Program. In 2008, while pursuing her doctorate, she began working as a research assistant at Women & Infants’ Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk. In 2012, she was awarded a grant, along with Drs. Judith Mercer and Sean Deoni, from the National Institutes of Health/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to study the timing of umbilical cord clamping and its effect on early brain development.