USC Upstate Mary Black School of Nursing’s Eboni Harris of Simpsonville was selected for the 2014–16 Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program of the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare.

As one of 300 Jonas Scholars across the country, Harris will receive $20,000 over the two-year period to support her doctoral studies, representing grant funds from the Jonas Foundation and matching funds from the College of Nursing.

Harris, an instructor in the Mary Black School of Nursing, is a second-year doctoral student at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Her research interest is to develop culturally tailored interventions addressing obesity in African American women.

The Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program was created in 2008 to support the educational development of nursing doctoral students, helping to increase the number of advanced practice nurses and health care leaders as well as nursing school faculty. This is the second time the USC College of Nursing has received the Jonas Center Grant for doctoral students.