Faculty: Courtney Caiola
With degrees in biology and anthropology, a 22-year-old Courtney Caiola set out on an uncertain future.
“I came out of undergrad not knowing what I wanted to do,” she said.
Now an assistant professor in East Carolina University’s College of Nursing, Caiola found her calling through a unique opportunity.
“I worked with teenage mothers as a house mom,” she said. “I worked really closely with their public health nurses, and I loved what they were doing and the way they were really helping these young women at a critical point in their lives as young mothers. I also had the good fortunate of being the Lamaze coach for several of the young ladies who were in the house. That’s how I came to nursing and I’ve been in women’s health since then. My entire career has been focused on women.”
After working in a hospital and teaching new nurses coming in, she moved with her family to Uganda in 2006, spending 3 1/2 years at a rural nursing school.
Dr. Courtney Caiola, center, works with Dr. Donna Roberson, left, faculty in the ECU College of Nursing, and registered nurse Grace Wilkins, of the ECU Adult Specialty Care Clinic. (Contributed Photo)
“I always wanted to work globally, and I didn’t want to do it in the short term,” Caiola said. “I wanted to go and be part of a community and live there long term. … That’s where I was really introduced to formal nursing education; I loved it. When our family came back to the states, I went back to the bedside for a couple of years, and then I went back and got my graduate degree so I could teach.”
A native of Boone, she has master’s degrees in public and international health from Tulane and in nursing from Tennessee. She obtained her doctoral degree in nursing from Duke. She arrived at ECU in the fall of 2019.
“It’s a fabulous College of Nursing, and I wanted to be part of it,” Caiola said. “This college is really making an impact on health in this state. We’re training a huge cadre of nurses, the most BSNs (Bachelor of Science in nursing) in the state, and being a part of that is really important to me, but more broadly, I’m just really motivated by ECU’s clear commitment to improving the health and well-being of this region. It comes through in pretty much everything that I see them do in the community.”
For Caiola, that impact involves research. Her current effort is focused on the development of messaging to help and encourage women living with HIV to stay in care and take their medication. She’s also looked at social and economic determinants of health and health equity.
“My research is all focused on improving the health and well-being of women,” she said. “I really feel like women are essential to our communities, and if they’re not healthy, then I don’t feel like the community can be as healthy, so that’s what drives me. Until we really recognize the needs of all people then communities won’t be healthy, and I think women’s voices have not always been heard and valued in ways that need to be.”
Caiola stresses service to her students. A 2021 ECU Servire Society inductee, she’s involved in the college’s research and scholarship committee, diversity advisory council, and nominating and awards committee. She also has a role with ECU’s Beta Nu chapter of the Sigma Theta Tau international nursing honor society.
“Nursing is a service-oriented vocation,” Caiola said. “As I moved more into research and teaching, I feel it’s super important to stay connected to the communities that you’re working with because research can become very abstract, very data driven, and you can lose sight of the people you’re working with. I am always conscious of telling students to center the voices of the people who you are working with and ask them what they need and want because they’ll tell you and then work in collaboration with them to improve their health. If you lose sight of that, it really becomes, in my mind, a little bit meaningless.”
She enjoys seeing her students learn how to care for others and believes her students help her learn as well.
“I really believe the classroom is a place where teachers and faculty and students are learning simultaneously,” she said. “I teach a lot of graduate students so a lot of them already have a lot of nursing experience, so we’re learning together, and I really like that part of the process. … They bring energy. They bring new knowledge. They bring great questions that challenge me, and I love that.”
Married and the mother of three, Caiola said her family has been with her every step of the way.
“My family means the world to me, and they are the reason I do what I do,” she said.
FAST FACTS
Name: Dr. Courtney Ellis Caiola
Title: Assistant professor
Hometown: Boone, North Carolina
Colleges attended and degrees:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Bachelor of Arts in biology and anthropology; Tulane University, Master of Public Health, international health; University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Master of Nursing, nursing of women and children; Duke University, doctorate in nursing
PIRATE PRIDE
Years working at ECU: 3
What I do at ECU: I am an assistant professor in the College of Nursing, Department of Nursing Science.
What I love about ECU: I love and am highly motivated by ECU’s clear commitment to improving the health and well-being of the residents of this region and the state.
Research interests: Community-engaged research; examining and addressing the social and economic determinants of health for women at risk for or living with HIV.
What advice do you give to students? Stay connected to the people and communities with whom you work. If you let it, health sciences research can meander into the abstract and theoretical, where people become subjects. Be intentional about centering the voices of the people you are working with — they will tell you what they need and want — and then, work in collaboration to meet their needs.
Favorite class to teach? Population Health
QUICK QUIZ
What do you like to do when not working?I love to spend as much time as possible with my family.
First job: Pumping yogurt at the local frozen yogurt shop.
Guilty pleasure: Soft serve ice cream
Favorite meal: Any meal surrounded by family.
One thing most people don’t know about me: Sleep is my superpower. I can sleep just about anywhere, and once my eyes are closed, I am out!