By Sarah Morgan Johnson

University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing Assistant Professor Rachel Wells, PhD, RN, CNL (MSN 2009, PhD 2019), is the recipient of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association’s 2025 New Investigator Award. This award honors a gifted new researcher whose work is making a difference in clinical care, the advancement of palliative nursing or professional development. Wells accepted the award at The Annual Assembly of Hospice and Palliative Care on February 8, 2025, in Denver, Colorado.

Wells’ research centers on developing and testing early palliative care interventions for adults living with serious illness with a focus on heart failure and has been published in peer-reviewed publications such as BMC Palliative Care, The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, The Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, The Journal of Cardiac Failure, The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management and more. Wells earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing in 2019 from the UAB School of Nursing, served as a postdoctoral fellow in the School from 2019 until she joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2023.

She has received numerous honors and awards for her work, including being named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholar in 2016 and being named one of the Emerging Leaders in Heart Failure by the Heart Failure Society of America in 2017.

Wells’ research interests stem from her family’s struggle to receive adequate health care in their rural community. One of her siblings was born with a congenital heart defect, and she remembers many long car rides as her family traveled to reach the nearest specialists.

“Watching my family struggle to get adequate specialty care during my sibling's illness and my mother's distress firmly established my passion for improving health care access for patients and families experiencing health disparities. These values underpin my nursing and research career,” Wells said.

Wells, also a Mixed Methods Consultant in the School, has more than 10 years of experience in palliative care, cardiac critical care and rural health. Throughout her career, she has considered the HPNA to be her professional home. She served as President of the Central Alabama Chapter of HPNA from 2020-2024 and treasurer from 2017-2019. Wells said it is an honor to receive an award from the organization that gave her so many opportunities to grow as an early career nurse scientist.

“I am incredibly grateful to be recognized by HPNA as the 2025 New Investigator Award recipient. Whether it was serving as local chapter president, co-chairing the State of the Science of Hospice and Palliative Care or developing national educational webinars and podcasts around palliative care integration in cardiac care, the leadership and membership of HPNA fostered my growth as a palliative care investigator and leader,” Wells said. “Receiving this award is a testament to the power of phenomenal mentorship, unrelenting support from my family and friends and the invaluable insights of countless adults living with heart failure who shared their stories and gave me purpose. This recognition is also a reflection of the collaborative spirit of my study team and colleagues, who make this work a joy.”

Looking to the future, Wells is hopeful that her research will continue to make a difference in the lives of adults suffering from advanced heart failure.

“I hope my research addresses the continued unmet palliative care needs and palliative care access issues of adults living with advanced heart failure and other chronic, serious illnesses in the Deep South. I hope my interventions lead to more robust palliative care access by establishing community networks of serious illness lay navigators. By using optimization designs in developing and testing in my ongoing trials, I want to unpack the mechanisms of how behavioral interventions achieve outcome change. Successful application of the principles of optimization can accelerate the development of scalable palliative care interventions with broader implications outside of palliative care and heart failure care,” Wells said.