2025 College of Nursing Award Recipients

Distinguished Alumna of the Year Award
Dr. Susan Onopa Fowler, Nurs ’78
Orlando, Fla.

Susan Fowler views success as less about individual striving and more about “the impact you have made on people and how they have been able to shine.” Currently chief nurse with the Veterans Administration at VA Orlando Health Care, Susan says Marquette’s emphasis on excellence helped prepare her for a career as a nurse leader.

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Personal Achievement Award
Dr. Sheri M. Carson-Beauto, Nurs ’97, Grad ’03 
Tucson, Ariz.

Dr. Sheri Carson-Beauto aims to Be The Difference through her work in pediatric nursing.  When she was a new pediatric nurse, she provided care to a two-year-old patient who had been physically abused by an adult. The experience affected her deeply and led her to implement comprehensive child physical abuse screening in the emergency department of a local children’s hospital.

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Service Award
Sheila King Spiezio, Nurs ’85
West Islip, N.Y.

After starting her career as a nurse in hospitals in Chicago and New York, Sheila Spiezio chose a new way to serve her community, through public health policy. “I knew the U.S. medical system needed structural improvements,” she explains. Today she works as a project manager in the department of regulatory affairs and patient safety at Stony Brook Medicine.

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Young Alumna of the Year Award
Dominique B. Hyatt-Oates, Grad ’18
Milwaukee, Wis.

For Dominique Hyatt-Oates, living the Marquette mission means working every day to make Milwaukee a healthier, more equitable community. She serves as the deputy commissioner for Policy Innovation and Equity (PIE) for the City of Milwaukee Public Health Department, a role that involves “reducing health disparities, increasing access to care and addressing systemic inequities, particularly for at-risk populations,” she says, adding that she is passionate about this city.

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