As school begins this fall, one dedicated professor will be missing from the classroom. Deborah Ryan RN PhD retired after more than 29 years of teaching and leadership.
Ryan came to Atlanta when her husband was admitted to the anesthesia physician assistant program at Emory in 1982.
“I took a staff nurse position at Grady Memorial Hospital and became an instructor in the nursing school. It was a perfect fit,” says Ryan, clinical associate professor in family and community nursing.
She served in various faculty roles, most recently as the BSN program director with responsiblity for implementing the school’s undergraduate curriculum. Ryan’s distinguished teaching has been recognized more the once. She was named the school’s Distinguished Teaching Professor in 2001 and received the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 2000.