The University of Virginia has named Marianne Baernholdt as dean of its School of Nursing. She will start Aug. 1, U.Va. said in a news release Wednesday.

Baernholdt comes to U.Va. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Nursing, where she has served as associate dean of global initiatives, interim dean of research and as a founding director of the school’s Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization-Collaborating Center in Quality and Safety Education in Nursing and Midwifery.

This also marks a return to U.Va. for Baernholdt. She previously served as director of global initiatives for U.Va.’s nursing school, directed its Rural and Global Health Care Center, and served as a faculty member in the School of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Sciences.

Baernholdt’s research focuses on how quality of care should be defined and the factors that affect care in rural areas globally. She has expertise in using large databases to track organizational, patient and clinician outcomes.

“Dr. Baernholdt will provide the School of Nursing a holistic, global perspective on the most important issues in nursing,” said Dr. K. Craig Kent, CEO of UVA Health and executive vice president for health affairs at U.Va., in a statement. “She is a scholar, a thought leader, an exceptional educator and an innovator in patient care and safety. She is everything we could ask for in a dean.”

Baernholdt succeeds Pam Cipriano, who has spent more than 40 years in nursing and has focused efforts to increase nursing’s influence on health care policy.

“I’m deeply grateful for Dean Cipriano’s years of outstanding service to the School of Nursing, and thrilled to welcome Dr. Baernholdt back to UVA,” said U.Va. President Jim Ryan. “She is truly at the forefront of her field, and brings a tremendous scope of knowledge and experience. It’s a wonderful homecoming.”

In addition to her time at UNC and U.Va., Baernholdt was founding director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Langston Center for Quality, Safety and Innovation. Baernholdt earned her Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, master’s degrees in nursing and public health from Columbia University, a bachelor’s in nursing from Pace University, and her diploma in nursing from Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark.