Corinne L. Plesko

Corinne “Cori” Plesko, BSN, RN is the recipient of the 2021-2022 Margaret L. McClure Scholarship Fund. Cori is currently a 4 th year DNP/PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University, School of Nursing, where she is specializing in both the pediatric acute care and primary care nurse practitioner tracks. Prior to pursuing graduate studies, Cori graduated magna cum laude in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Pittsburgh. She then began her nursing career at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah in the Pediatric Intensive Care and Cardiac Intensive Care units. Cori continues to practice as a registered nurse in Baltimore, Maryland.

She also enjoys serving in both her school and local communities: she currently serves as the School of Nursing’s representative to the Johns Hopkins University’s PhD Advisory Council as well as has enjoyed being a reading tutor at a local Baltimore elementary school for first and second grade students. Cori is also actively engaged in the nursing community as a member of several nursing organizations, including Sigma Theta Tau international, Eta and Nu Beta chapters.

Cori’s decision to pursue doctoral studies was influenced by her experiences as a bedside nurse. Through this work, she saw the importance of providing patients and their families quality primary care, particularly in lower-resource settings, in order to reduce the likelihood of future critical care interventions. As a future clinician-scientist, Cori’s goal is to continue to work to make healthcare more accessible and equitable to all communities. Furthermore, as a dual DNP and PhD prepared nurse, she hopes to serve as an important link between research and clinical practice in her future career. In this dual role, she also hopes to maintain a presence in the nursing academic community in order to help educate the future generations of nurses.

Currently, Cori’s dissertation work is focused on understanding the role of social connectedness in group-based parent training programs in low-income school settings. She hopes to continue to focus her work on multi-generation interventions that improve the health and wellbeing of low- income children, families, and communities throughout her future career.