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Jessica Gonzalez stands on the USC campus

A nursing leader emerges

Nursing faculty member achieves her goals by degrees and with determination

Jessica Gonzalez’s path to becoming a nurse and a nursing faculty member at USC had a few stopovers and detours along the way, including a stint as a science instructor at a community college.

But Gonzalez’s career, both as a faculty member and nursing leader, is poised for new heights. She was recently selected by Jonas Philanthropies to become a Jonas Scholar, an elite cohort of emerging nursing leaders from across the country. And her current Ph.D. research, which focuses on disparities in breast cancer diagnoses, was recognized by the National Institutes for Health with an R25 training grant.

“I’ve started my qualifying exams and hope to complete my Ph.D. next year,” says Gonzalez, an assistant professor of nursing who previously earned BA, BSN, MSN and DNP degrees from the university. “If I can be consistent and hardworking, I think I can achieve it.”

That shouldn’t be a reach, given the determination Gonzalez has demonstrated thus far in her career. It began when she earned a bachelor’s in psychology from USC more than 15 years ago and worked in mental health rehabilitation and at a battered women’s shelter before returning to South Carolina to pursue a nursing degree.

Because she had done so well in anatomy and physiology prerequisite courses, Midlands Technical College recruited Gonzalez to teach lab sections of those courses to its nursing students. She earned an online master’s in science and then added the lecture sections of anatomy and physiology, as well. But she felt something was missing.

I tend to gravitate into leadership positions. I think it’s my personality — I like to be able to see things at a systems level and make changes.”

Jessica Gonzalez

"At some point, I realized that the reason I had taken anatomy and physiology in the first place was to become a nurse. I really liked teaching science classes, and I was so grateful to have been a part of my students’ lives, but they were achieving what I had initially set out to do,” Gonzalez says. “I met and talked with nursing faculty about how they achieved their success, and I set in my mind that I was going to become a nurse and a nursing faculty member.”

Gonzalez’s work ethic kicked into overdrive as she completed the requirements to become an LPN, gave birth to the first of three children, then completed an associate degree in nursing before earning a bachelor’s in nursing from USC Upstate. While working in various positions as a registered nurse, she pursued a master’s in nursing administration from the College of Nursing on the Columbia campus.

“I tend to gravitate into leadership positions,” she says. “I think it’s my personality — I like to be able to see things at a systems level and make changes.”

While earning her master’s in nursing, Gonzalez focused her thesis on breast cancer health. Two days before her interview to be accepted into the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree program in the College of Nursing, Gonzalez was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I remember getting a little teary eyed when they asked me what I wanted to do for my project in the DNP program,” she says. “A very close friend and my stepsister had previously been diagnosed with breast cancer, and I was starting to go through the process and already recognizing some of the flaws in the system of breast cancer care. That made it very easy to know what I was going to do in my DNP.”

Gonzalez’s cancer was detected early, and following successful surgery, she began teaching in the College of Nursing. Her decision to pursue a Ph.D. in nursing circles back to her desire to effect change at the system level. In the case of her dissertation topic, that means evaluating the breast cancer health process to address disparities in breast cancer diagnoses.

“There is a lot of research into why Black women are more likely to die of breast cancer — 40 percent more likely — but there’s no clear answer. They’re less likely to get breast cancer but more likely to die from it if they do,” Gonzalez says. “I’m also looking at the association between HIV rates and breast cancer, particularly in South Carolina which has a very high HIV rate.”

While her research currently focuses on breast cancer, Gonzalez envisions her future research encompassing women’s health issues more broadly, perhaps using big data and artificial intelligence tools to drive the work.

“MIT has a great program that is showing promise as a better predictor for earlier identification of breast cancer,” she says. “I would love to do something similar.”

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