Rate My Professor Karen Saban

Karen L. Saban, PhD, RN, CNRN, FAHA, FAAN, is Professor and Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing Endowed Chair for Research at Loyola University Chicago, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Research and Scholarly Innovation. A three-time Loyola alumna, she earned her BSN in Nursing in 1986, MSN in Nursing Administration in 1990, and PhD in Nursing in 2006, receiving the Dissertation Distinction Award. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in methods for evaluating outcomes in neuroscience patients at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital Center for Management of Complex Chronic Care from 2007 to 2010. Her career began in clinical nursing as a staff nurse in medical-oncology and surgical/trauma ICU at Loyola University Medical Center, followed by management roles including neurosurgical ICU manager at Chicago Neurosurgical Center and Director of Nursing and Quality Improvement at Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch. She joined Loyola faculty as Assistant Professor in 2006, was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2012, full Professor in 2020, and appointed Endowed Chair for Research effective July 1, 2025.

Dr. Saban's program of research examines the biobehavioral mechanisms of stress, resilience, inflammation, epigenetics, and social determinants of health impacting cardiometabolic outcomes, with a focus on cardiovascular, neurology, and epigenetics, particularly health disparities in African American women. She has secured over $15 million in extramural funding from the NIH, VA, Department of Defense, PCORI, and foundations, including as Lead MPI on NIH/NIA R01 (2023-2028) studying a race-based stress reduction intervention on well-being, inflammation, and DNA methylation in Black women at risk for cardiometabolic disease. A Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA) and American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), she was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International’s Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in 2025—the first from Loyola Nursing—and received the 2023 Sage Award for mentorship. Widely published in leading journals, notable works include "Meditation and cardiovascular risk reduction: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association" (2017) and "Poststroke fatigue: emerging evidence and approaches to management: a scientific statement for healthcare professionals from the American Heart Association" (2017). She mentors students and early-career investigators, facilitating NIH K and TL1 awards and expanding Loyola Nursing's research capacity.