Dr. Alice Kuramoto
Dr. Kuramoto is a nationally recognized leader in continuing education and before her retirement she crisscrossed the United States during her 34 years as a nursing educator ?studying, teaching, editing and leading conferences in Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, Washington, Wisconsin & Washington DC. Along the way, she garnered some of the highest awards possible in her profession.
Impact
Dr. Kuramoto herself knows only too well the challenges of being in the minority. Though her father?s studies at the Osteopathic College of Medicine in Des Moines, Iowa, spared his family from being interned (as were the vast majority of Japanese-Americans during World War II), Alice vividly remembers growing up as a member of the only Asian family in her hometown. This isolating distinction continued for Alice, the only Asian nursing student during her tenure at both the University of Iowa and University of Minnesota nursing schools. In 1994 she became the first Asian-American nurse to be employed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? Division of Nursing.