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Forensic Sciences Professor Recognized For Research on High-Profile Case

Carlos Gutiérrez Ayala, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Forensic Sciences at Chaminade, received the American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ prestigious Robert Gaffney Achievement Award at the 77th Annual Scientific Conference this spring.

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Gutiérrez Ayala received the honor for his case research and oral presentation, “Forensic Reconstruction and Forensic Taphonomy: An Experiment for a High-Profile Case Conducted for the First Time in Chile.” His work was recognized for its innovation, scientific rigor, and global relevance, marking a significant contribution to the advancement of forensic science research and practice.

The Robert Gaffney Achievement Award aims to promote ongoing professional development in forensic sciences and support emerging leaders in the field.

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“I feel very proud to receive this national award,” Gutiérrez Ayala said, adding that the research was linked to a high-profile case in Chile.

“Thanks to the forensic results of this case research, I was able to provide all the necessary answers for this case and present them to my colleagues at the AAFS Conference.”

Gail Grabowsky, Ph.D., dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, said Ayala’s work “continues to inspire and elevate the field of forensic science.”

She added, “We are thrilled to see his case research receive the recognition it deserves.”

Chaminade Awarded $2.3M to Bolster Behavioral Health Workforce

To help fill the urgent demand for more mental health services, Chaminade University of Honolulu has been awarded a $2.34 million federal grant over four years to expand and strengthen the state’s behavioral health workforce.

The Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) award provided by Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) supports Chaminade’s initiative to develop a health care workforce in a comprehensive effort to address the acute shortage of mental health professionals across the islands.

Dr. Pamela Smith (Associate Dean, School of Nursing and Health Professions)
Pamela Smith, EdD, APRN-Rx

Hawai‘i is facing a critical shortage of mental health services, especially for children, adolescents and homeless members of the community. The lingering effects of the pandemic, recent natural disasters such as the Maui wildfires, compounded by economic uncertainty and systemic healthcare gaps, have driven an unprecedented demand for behavioral health support.

The BHWET initiative will primarily serve young adults and marginalized populations throughout Hawai‘i, ensuring that care reaches those who need it most.

By equipping nurse practitioners with advanced behavioral health training and embedding them in community health settings, Chaminade University aims to transform access to care across the state.

The grant, awarded to Chaminade’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) program will provide support to students, faculty, clinical preceptors, and community organizations in order to educate future PMHNPs in an interprofessional setting while concurrently strengthening the interdisciplinary team approach to delivering care.

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“Our mission is rooted in developing a workforce capable of serving the community,” said Dr. Pamela Smith, vice dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions and DNP director. “With this support, we’re not only expanding educational access for future PMHNPs, we’re directly addressing the workforce gaps that are preventing families and children from getting the care they need.”

This latest grant strengthens Chaminade University’s mission to serve Hawai‘i by investing in the next generation of mental health providers and expanding access to care where it’s needed most.

Dr. Lorin Ramocki, dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions, added that by advancing workforce training and community-based partnerships, “Chaminade is taking meaningful steps to close the mental health care gap and uplift underserved populations across the state.”

As Chaminade’s PMHNP track coordinator and grant program lead, Dr. Dana Monday will work with key community collaborators in this initiative, including the Institute of Human Services (IHS) and Child and Family Services (CFS). Both agencies offer deeply rooted, community-based services to vulnerable populations.

Chaminade’s BHWET initiative directly addresses this crisis through a multi-faceted approach:

• Recruitment and Training: The program will support and train a new generation of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNPs) by providing targeted financial support to students in Chaminade’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, lowering economic barriers to entry into this vital field.

• Field Placement and Experiential Learning: New and expanded partnerships with community organizations will provide students with hands-on experience in integrated care settings across high-need areas, particularly in underserved communities.

• Interprofessional and Team-Based Training: Students will train alongside professionals from various health disciplines, learning to deliver collaborative, holistic care that integrates behavioral health into primary care environments.

• Preceptor Development: The program will also focus on increasing the capacity of experienced behavioral health professionals to serve as clinical preceptors and mentors for the next generation of practitioners.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Chaminade has graduated more than 650 students in behavioral health majors, including Doctor of Clinical Psychology (PsyD), Bachelor’s in Psychology, Masters in Counseling Psychology (MSCP), Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), and started Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy (DMFT) and Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy (MSMFT) programs.

The DNP program, launched in 2021, has four specialty tracks, including Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP), Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP), Executive Leader, and the only Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) program in the state.

(HRSA Award Grant No. M01HP54853-01-00)

Chaminade Hosts ‘Meaningful Work’ Summit

Scores of policymakers, corrections officials, nonprofit advocates, and others converged on Chaminade’s campus for a summit focused on fostering pathways to meaningful employment for those who have been impacted by the justice system, including formerly incarcerated individuals.

The June 25 Pathways to Meaningful Work Symposium, organized by Chaminade and made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, included a panel of formerly incarcerated people who shared the barriers they faced to employment and the support and resources that made all the difference.

Janet Davidson, Ph.D, vice provost for Academic Affairs, said the event was designed to bring together a diversity of stakeholders on a critical issue.

The summit comes as Chaminade prepares to welcome a third cohort to its prison education program at Halawa Correctional Facility.

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Participants of the program earn an associate’s degree in Business Administration.

Davidson said the prison education initiative has prompted questions at the University and beyond about “what’s next.”

She continued, “Once someone earns a degree, how are we helping them transition to meaningful employment?” And that’s what the summit was meant to explore.

Ved Price, executive director of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, spoke at the conference and said it’s critical to generate more conversation about how to transition people out of prison and ensure they can build successful lives following incarceration.


“We want the community to understand that education is one of our most powerful interventions that we have for incarceration,” Price said. “It’s important to get as many people to the table as possible, meaning the business community, corrections, policymakers, all in the same room.”

Since the launch of Chaminade’s prison education program, 17 people have earned their associate’s degree while incarcerated.

Davidson said in addition to welcoming a new cohort this fall, the University plans to offer bachelor’s degree courses to previous AA graduates. Chaminade also has plans to expand the program to other correctional facilities.

Nursing Professor Receives Prestigious Honor

Chaminade Associate Professor Marife Aczon-Armstrong, MSCP ’03, Ph.D. has been selected for induction into the American Academy of Nursing’s 2025 Class of Fellows, a prestigious honor reserved for leaders in the field who have made substantial contributions to health care.

This year’s fellows hail from 42 states and 12 countries. They will join 3,200 active Academy Fellows who “together advance the Academy’s mission of improving health and achieving health equity by impacting policy through nursing leadership, innovation, and science.”

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Aczon-Armstrong has been a nationally board certified nurse case manager for 25 years, and a Fulbright Senior Specialist for more than a decade. In addition to a doctoral degree in nursing, she holds master’s degrees in nursing and counseling psychology along with multiple certifications.

Marife Aczon-Armstrong

Lorin Ramocki, DNP, interim dean of Chaminade’s School of Nursing and Health Professions, congratulated Aczon-Armstrong on receiving “one of the highest honors in our profession” with her induction as a 2025 fellow.

“This recognition reflects not only her extraordinary contributions to leadership and nursing education, but also elevates the national profile of our School and its commitment to advancing health equity and innovation,” Ramocki said.

The academy said the 2025 Class of Fellows was selected from a historically high number of applicants.

The fellows will be formally recognized at a conference in October in Washington, D.C.

“I cannot emphasize enough at this pivotal time in history the vital importance of recognizing this extraordinary and sizeable group of nurse leaders. With rich and varied backgrounds from practice, policy, research, entrepreneurship, and academia, they have been instrumental in using nursing’s holistic approach to improve the health of patients and communities throughout the world,” said Academy President Linda D. Scott, Ph.D.

Also among the 2025 Class of Fellows: Sondra Leiggi Brandon, a member of the University’s Board of Governors. Brandon is vice president of Patient Care, Behavioral Health at the Queen’s Health Systems.

New Volume Explores Scottish Literature in the Pacific

Two English professors at Chaminade are celebrating the publication of a new volume, Scottish Literature of the South Seas: Critical Studies of Scotland and the Pacific, which grew out of a 2019 conference at the University aimed at spotlighting and celebrating Scottish literature.

Allison Francis, Ph.D. and Richard Hill, Ph.D. said the project was something of a labor of love.

The volume turns to an international group of academics and writers to “consider the Scottish presence in the Pacific Islands and Oceania during the 19th century,” Francis said.

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The collection also includes “fascinating new scholarship” on the topic.

“Scots settled and married into Pacific cultures in a way that other British didn’t (especially English), and consequently there is a Scottish presence in modern Pacific life,” Hill said.

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Allison Francis, Ph.D.
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Richard Hill, Ph.D.

“We have traced very early Scottish literary presence through to modern day parallels that has not been done before.”

The professors noted they are thankful to everyone who made the volume possible, including a number of Chaminade students who assisted with re-writing, compiling and editing for the book.

They also hope to continue exploring the subject. And in the fall, they plan to hold a reading and question-and-answer session on the volume for the Chaminade campus community.

Workshop Focused on Teaching Financial Literacy

Nearly two dozen Hawaiʻi public school teachers gathered on Chaminade’s campus for the fourth annual Economics and Personal Finance Summer Workshop, which is focused on giving educators hands-on and relevant tools for incorporating financial literacy into their curricula.

The week-long training opportunity, held June 9-13, is offered by the University’s Economic Education Center for Excellence in collaboration with Hawaiʻi USA Federal Credit Union.

Participants get fresh, fun tools for teaching personal finance, budgeting and saving.

Twenty-one public school educators from across O‘ahu participated in this year’s workshop, representing elementary, middle, and high schools, with the majority serving Title I schools and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities. Additionally, a separate virtual workshop will be held for educators across Hawai‘i’s neighboring islands.

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The workshop featured hands-on activities, including market simulations, the Bean Salary Budgeting Game, and lessons based on the Ten Principles of Economics. Participants also got ready-to-use lesson plans designed to engage students in real-world applications of economic and personal finance literacy while blending culturally responsive teaching methods.

Since its launch in 2021, EECE’s summer workshop has trained 84 teachers.

With this year’s expanded offerings, the total number of teachers who have participated has increased to 116—and collectively they reach more than 10,000 Hawai‘i students annually.



“This program supports teachers on the frontlines of preparing students for their financial futures and we are very grateful to Hawai‘i USA Federal Credit Union for helping us to make this powerful learning opportunity possible,” said Chaminade President Lynn Babington, Ph.D.

“By investing in teachers, we’re empowering thousands of students across the state to make more informed financial decisions and build stronger futures.”