The ASPEN Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Sharon Y. Irving, PhD, RN, CRNP, FCCM, FNAP, FAAN, FASPEN, will serve as the 50th President for the 2026–2027 term, becoming the first nurse who is also a nurse practitioner to hold this position in the organization.
Dr. Irving is a professor of pediatric nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and holds the Miriam Stirl Endowed Term Chair in Nutrition in the Department of Family and Community Health. She is also a nurse practitioner (NP) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), providing nutrition support through the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, primarily for critically ill patients.
“Dr. Irving’s career is dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary collaboration and evidence-based policies. Her leadership and scholarship epitomize ASPEN’s mission and vision,” said ASPEN Chief Executive Officer Wanda Johnson, CMP, CAE.
“As a member of Dr. Irving’s dissertation committee and a fellow faculty colleague at Penn, I’ve delighted in witnessing the impact of her research and commitment to evidence-based clinical practice on our field. Not only has she improved the nutrition care provided to children at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, but her research and teamwork have informed clinical guidelines for care of critically ill children, said Rhoads Research Foundation President Charlene Compher, PhD, RD, LDN, FASPEN. “Sharon is a skillful leader of interdisciplinary research and clinical practice teams, with a laser focus on the highest quality patient care.”
A graduate of Marquette University, Dr. Irving received an MSN and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed postdoctoral clinical training in CHOP’s GI Division in Nutrition Support, the only nurse to undertake this program.
Dr. Irving’s career began through crisscrossing the country, first serving as a staff nurse in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units and then as a pediatric critical care nurse practitioner in some of the most prestigious children’s hospitals in the U.S., from New York City, Houston, and Stanford, to Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
Dr. Irving joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in 1991. She teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels, mentors doctoral nursing students, and serves on the faculty of the graduate nutrition science curriculum.
Her research focuses on optimizing nutrition therapy for critically ill infants and children, including nutrition assessment, nutrient delivery, enteral tolerance, and the use of parenteral nutrition when necessary. She has authored and co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and 10 book chapters, including the 2017 Pediatric Nutrition Support Guidelines (ASPEN/SCCM) and the 2019 best practice recommendations for nasogastric tube verification.
An engaged member of ASPEN since 2011, Dr. Irving has served on the New Opportunities for Verification of Enteral Tube Location (NOVEL) Committee and its Best Practices Subcommittee. She has also served on the Interdisciplinary Scoping Taskforce, the COVID-19 Task Force on Nutrition Research, the Guidelines Writing Committee, the Best Practices Development Committee, and the 2022 Conference Planning Committee. She was named the Distinguished Nutrition Support Nurse in 2019, became an ASPEN Fellow in 2021, and was elected to the Board of Directors in 2022.
Her work has garnered numerous awards, including the 2024 National League for Nursing Isabel Hampton Robb Award for Outstanding Leadership in Clinical Practice, the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing Marilyn Stringer Award for Academic Practice in 2021, four presidential citations from the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and induction as a fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, and the National Academies of Practice.
Most recently, Dr. Irving was the 2026 inaugural recipient of the Shari L. Simone Award for Leadership and Scholarship in Pediatric Critical Care Advanced Practice Nursing and named the 2026 recipient of Penn Nursing’s prestigious Norma M. Lang Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy for her research that has “transformed pediatric critical care and nutrition practices,” leadership that “elevated nursing’s voice in interdisciplinary science,” and “teaching her vision of equity-driven, evidence-based practice.”
ASPEN looks forward to Dr. Irving’s leadership and is dedicated to championing her continued contributions to advancing collaboration in clinical nutrition.