From delivering advanced nursing care to enhancing the understanding of processes and treatments related to care, Sharon considers it a privilege to care for critically ill children and their families.

“Children are resilient,” she says. “They constantly give me encouragement to work harder, understand more and do the very best I can as part of the team caring for them.”

Sharon has been a nurse for more than 30 years and a pediatric critical care nurse practitioner for more than 19 of them.

She is a member of the standing faculty at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and a pediatric critical care nurse practitioner at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she is involved in nutrition research for this vulnerable population.

She recently traveled to Kenya, where she conducted a health clinic for children in a rural village.

“For many, it was the first time they had been seen by a health care professional,” Sharon says. “The gratefulness of the people and joy on the faces of the children again reinforced for me why I am a nurse. More important, the experience uncovered my desire to become more involved in humanitarian pediatric health care efforts in this country and globally.”

In her career, Sharon has been director of a mobile inner-city asthma program, director of a pediatric critical care inpatient nurse practitioner program, and project manager for a large National Institute of Health-funded clinical trial and a multisite Centers for Disease Control-funded study.

Get to Know: Dr. Sharon Y. Irving

Hometown:  New York City 

Someone past or present she’d like to have dinner with: United States President Barack Obama and wife, Michelle

The Marquette faculty or staff member who had a great impact on her:  Sarah Ford, director of the Multicultural Cente. She always had an ear, always gave encouragement and made the MCC a safe haven and a place to go for friendship, camaraderie and solace in the tumultuous 1970s.

Most influential in Sharon’s life: A woman she met while living in Milwaukee and attending Marquette – Mrs. Emma Johnson, she was the first nurse she met who was a Black woman, didn’t wear a white uniform, but was the consummate professional nurse.