Dawn M. Aycock

Dr. Dawn Aycock is an Associate Professor and Director of the nursing Ph.D. program in the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions at Georgia State University (GSU). She received her BSN from Prairie View A&M University, her MSN from Emory University, and her Ph.D. in Nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Aycock is a registered nurse and certified adult health nurse practitioner whose career has focused on advancing and promoting nursing science through research, education, and service.

Dr. Aycock’s research has moved primary stroke prevention science forward by increasing awareness of stroke as a preventable disease and addressing its disparities and inequities among African Americans/Blacks. She focuses on helping individuals improve their understanding of stroke including personal risk of stroke and promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors to reduce stroke risk. Dr. Aycock has received grant support from GSU, the National Institute of Nursing Research and the Betty Irene Moore Nurse Fellowship Program for Nurse Leaders and Innovators to develop and test a Stroke COunseling for Risk REduction (SCORRE) intervention for African Americans aged 20-35 years.

Dr. Aycock has been a member of PCNA since 2016; she’s served on the membership committee since 2018 and received the top poster award for original research at the 2018 PCNA symposium. She is also a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. Dr. Aycock was one of 70 nursing alumni selected as a visionary leader from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2021 and one of 11 nurse scientists selected for the inaugural 2020 cohort of the Betty Irene Moore Fellowship Program for Nurse Leaders and Innovators. Her work in stroke and nursing education has been published in top-tiered journals and presented at professional conferences and events, most notably, she was a keynote speaker at the 2019 Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research.