Dr. Zhan is the Dean and a tenured Professor of the Loewenberg College of Nursing at the U of M. Dean Zhan is a Wharton Executive Fellow and a Fellow of American Academy of Nursing (FAAN). Dean Zhan's program of research focuses on Quality of Life of older adults and ethnic minorities. Her scholarly work is evident by funded research projects such as Health promotion for ethnic elderly women; family care giving for Alzheimer's Disease; Self-consistency and self-care among African American older adults; Medication practices in community-dwelling Chinese American elders; promotion of hydration for community dwelling elderly; and Senior health service needs in Boston's Chinatown. Dean Zhan was a Research Fellow at Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston and a Research Fellow at Boston's Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged where she studied family care giving for persons with Alzheimer's disease under the NIH K24 Grant. Dean Zhan has served as consultant for UMass Boston and Lowell funded HRSA grants for Nursing Workforce Diversity. Dean Zhan's scholarly work extends to serving as a reviewer for refereed journals of Nursing Education, Nursing Research, Advanced Nursing Sciences, Nursing Reports (Online journal in United Kingdom), and on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Gerontological Nursing. Currently, Dean Zhan is the principle investigator who conducts a funded research to understand how dementia patients and their families using internet and to assess if computer games help dementia patients and their families. Dean Zhan has published > 100 articles and edited five books. She developed two instruments (1) to measure self-consistency and (2) to measure medication practice in the community-dwelling older adults. These instruments that measure psycho-behavioral constructs were published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing or Journal of Gerontological Nursing, respectively. She developed a conceptual model on Quality of Life, which was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing (1992). The NIH K24 funded research on family caregivers of Alzheimer's' diseases was published in the Journal of Gerontologist (2005). She continues her scholarly work in gerontology and higher education diversity and leadership.

Quality of Life of older adults Ethnic elderly women Family care giving for Alzheimer's Disease Self-consistency and self-care among African American older adults Medication practices in community-dwelling Chinese American elders Promotion of hydration for community dwelling elderly