ORGANIZATION

Savina Schoenhofer was born the second child and eldest daughter in a family of nine children, spending her formative years on the family cattle ranch in Kansas. She is named for her maternal grandfather, who was a classical musician in Kansas City, Missouri. She has a daughter, Carrie, and a granddaughter, Emma, who is also a nurse. 

During the 1960s, Schoenhofer spent 3 years in the Amazon region of Brazil, working as a volunteer in community development. She completed bachelor’s degrees in Nursing and Psychology in 1972 at Wichita State University, where she also earned graduate degrees in nursing and counseling. She completed a PhD in educational foundations and administration at Kansas State University in 1983. In 1990 Schoenhofer cofounded Nightingale Songs, an early venue for communicating the beauty of nursing in poetry and prose. In addition to her work on caring, including coauthorship with Boykin of Nursing As Caring: A Model for Transforming Practice (1993, 2001a), Schoenhofer has written numerous articles on nursing values, primary care, nursing education, support, touch, mentoring and robots in nursing.

Schoenhofer, who resides in Jackson, Mississippi, USA,  retired from a 32-year teaching career, at universities including Wichita State, Florida Atlantic, University of Mississippi, Texas Tech and Alcorn State. Dr. Schoenhofer is committed to the continuing development and study of Nursing As Caring. 

Dr. Yasuhara is an associate professor of nursing, Department of Nursing Outcome Management, Tokushima University Graduate School in Japan. She received her PhD from Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare (2013) and her MSN in Nursing from Kobe City College of Nursing University (2003). She worked for 7 years as a Registered Nurse in the emergency ward, emergency out-patient unit and catheterization laboratory, at the general hospital in Kobe, Japan. She has worked at the Tokushima University since 2003. She is interested in the care of patients with ischemic heart disease based on her clinical experiences, with particular emphasis on sleep, activity and improving the quality of life of patients. As well, her research focuses on the safe intramuscular injection technique and caring as nursing. She has educated nursing theory on caring in nursing for undergraduate students. The content of education is based on theories of Technological Competency as Caring in Nursing (Dr. Locsin) and A model for Transforming Practice (Dr. Boykin and Dr. Schoenhofer). Dr. Yasuhara is conducting collaborative research with Dr. Locsin and Dr. Schoenhofer, and is also engaged in activities that reflect the research outcomes in nursing education. Her educational goal is to promote the caring competency of nursing students in Japan, especially using aesthetic expression. Recently, Dr. Yasuhara and co-researcher have continued collecting ethical and legal data from the nursing perspective on communication robots, which are used in the hospital. 

Dr. Kyoko Osaka, RN; PHN, MSN, PhD, is a professor, Nursing Science, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Kochi University, Japan since 2019. She worked as a Lecturer of Nursing, Graduate School of Health Biosciences, Tokushima University, Tokushima, Japan during August 2013 to July 2019; and an Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Kochi Prefectural University, Kochi, Japan, from April 2009 to July 2013. She is one of the editors of the book "NURSING ROBOTS: Robotic Technology and Human Caring for the Elderly", Fukuro Publisher, Japan, published in 2017. In this book, past research influencing human-to-human and human-to-robot relationships involving robot artificial super-intelligence is presented to aid in adopting appropriate technologies to meet the demands of future endeavors in health care. Interdisciplinary collaborative research will be a prospective visioning seen and realized from the perspective of Japanese human caring ideas for an aging society. She found her passion for nursing research focused on studying caring for older adults with dementia, older adults and caring robot interaction/transaction, and empathic understanding in nursing. Especially, she is known for her Model for the Intermediary Role of Nurses in Transactive Relationships With Healthcare Robots (MIRTH). 

Dr. Ito earned his PhD, MSN and BSN from the University of Tokushima in 2016, 2013, and 2007, respectively. He worked as a staff nurse at Tokushima University Hospital in Japan from 2007 to 2013, with experiences on the care of patients in acute care settings, and nursing care of patients suffering from intractable neurological　diseases. Since 2013, he has been an Assistant Professor of Nursing, with research focusing on developing the Psychiatric Nursing Assessment Classification and Nursing Care Planning System (PsyNACS©), a patient database system in psychiatric nursing. Currently, his research interests also include an emphasis on multivariate analysis, and the use of advanced technological instruments such as tools to detect and analyze human gaze and voice analysis to determine communication processes of interactions between human beings and healthcare robots. He has presented outcomes of his research in national and international conferences in nursing and engineering, and published research findings in key nursing and healthcare journals.

Dr. Kongsuwan is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University (PSU), in Southern Thailand. She earned her baccalaureate and master’s degrees from PSU. She was the first international student to complete her Ph.D. in Nursing program at Florida Atlantic University, USA in 2009 where her interests in caring science and knowledge development through qualitative research were nurtured. She developed a middle-range theory “Aesthetic Nursing Practice (AesNURP)" in 2020. She authored a book "Nursing for Critical Ill Patients at the End Stage of Life with Technology” and was a co-editor of a book, "The Evolution of the Theory of Technological Competency as Caring in Nursing: A Middle-Range Theory of Nursing." As a researcher and scholar, Dr. Kongsuwan was honored as an outstanding researcher and a distinguished thesis advisor for Human and Social Science of PSU and a distinguished researcher of the Nurses Association of Southern Thailand. As an administrator, she was promoted to be Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Studies, and International Affairs, and an editor of Songklanagarind Journal of Nursing.  In addition, she was a visiting scholar at Tokushima University, Japan. Currently, she is the Chairman of Master of Nursing Science in Adult and Gerontological Nursing (International Program), Faculty of Nursing, PSU, and a committee of Ethics in Nursing Research of Thailand Nursing Council. She has published research and theoretical works on areas focused on the care of persons during the end of life, lived experiences of persons within the context of technologies, and aesthetics in nursing. 

Maria Elizabeth C. Baua  completed her Doctor in Nursing Science at St Paul University Philippines in 2011 and currently working as Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of the PHD in Nursing Science, Master of Science in Nursing and Master of Arts in Nursing. She was the Dean of the School of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences at St Paul University Philippines from School Year 2011-2012 until School year 2018-2019.

Her research interests are focused on caring science, transcultural nursing and interprofessional caring in the health sciences. She has published research in these areas of nursing education and practice.

She obtained her Master of Science in Nursing at St Paul University Philippines Major in Womens’ Health minor in Diabetes Nursing in 1995. She worked as head nurse of the Operating Theatre at the Philippine Children’s medical center in Quezon City from 1980-1083.

Her experience in Maternal & Child Health Nursing inspired her to initiate community service projects in Cagayan Valley focusing on Safe motherhood and child health that gave her the recognition as Most Outstanding Maternal & Child Health Nurse in 2011 organized and sponsored by the Mother & Child Health Nurses  Association of the Philippines. In 2016, she was designated as member of the executive Committee of the EAFONS until the present and  just recently, she was inaugurated as member of the Sigma Theta Tau `Philippines. 

Dr. Guino-o is the Dean of the College of Nursing at Silliman University, a Center of Excellence in Nursing Education in the Philippines. As Associate Professor, she teaches in the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate programs at the University. She leads in the development of the clinical simulation center at the College of Nursing and facilitates training in various colleges and universities in the country. Her involvement as a member and officer in the Philippine Nurses’ Association at the local and provincial and national level as well as the Sigma Theta Tau International Psi Beta Chapter gives her opportunities to advance the nurses' causes and propel innovations in the profession. Her researches revolve around concepts of humanization and emancipation in healthcare, adult health nursing, gerontology, and disaster nursing. Besides academic work, she also extends community services as a volunteer in disaster preparedness/response programs and psychosocial processing and instructor in Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support. Dr. Guino-o obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Master of Science in Nursing (Major in Adult Health), and a Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing degrees from Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines. 

Evalyn  E.  Abalos , PhD.,  RN,   is former Dean of the College of Nursing , Silliman  University , Philippines , a Center of Excellence in Nursing Education . She served as member ,  Commission on Higher Education Technical Committee on Nursing  Education ( CHED-TCNE ) , Republic of the Philippines   from 2015 – January, 2022. She has vast nursing experience in both practice  and  in academia and has remained active in  teaching after retirement  in the   graduate programs  of the College of Nursing ,  Master in Public Health  and Master in  Hospital Administration at Silliman University  .  She is a core faculty of the Municipal Health and Governance Program ( MLGP )  , a project of  Silliman University  Government Affairs  Center    with the Department of Health  ( DOH),  Region 7 , Philippines .  

During her  deanship , she was   among those who were instrumental in the inception and chartering of  Psi Beta chapter , the first  chartered  chapter   of the Sigma  Theta  Tau  International ( STTI ) Honor Society of Nursing ,   in the Philippines   .  Her qualitative researches  and publications  focus on phenomenology  influencing caring in Nursing .  She was a  recipient  of the STTI Edith Anderson Leadership Education Grant  in 2019 . She was  an awardee, Beta Nu Delta  Research  Award  for Research  in 2015 . 

Dr. Feni Betriana graduated from Doctoral course at the Graduate School of Health Sciences (Major: Nursing), Tokushima University, Japan, in 2022. During her doctoral course, she also worked as research assistant at the Department of Nursing Outcome, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Tokushima University, from 2019-2022. She earned her Master of Nursing Science (MNS) from Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand (2018), professional education (Ners) from Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Andalas, Indonesia (2012), and Bachelor of Nursing (S. Kep) from Nursing Program, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Andalas, Indonesia (2011). Following graduation from Universitas Andalas, she worked as a lecturer in Fort de Kock University (Former: Fort de Kock Health Science College) from 2013 to 2018.

Her research interests are nurses` grief, end-of-life care, and technology in nursing. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Tetsuya Tanioka, RN, PhD, FAAN, she developed the Grief State Scale for Nurses (GSSN). With Prof. Tanioka`s team, she joined several research on humanoid robots in healthcare. She published 15 first authored papers, 20 co-authored papers, and 3 book chapters.

She was the awardee of MONBUKAGAKUSHO scholarship for PhD program from Japanese Government (2019-2022), awardee of Thailand Education Hub for ASEAN Countries scholarship for Master Program from Kingdom of Thailand (2016-2018), awardee of American Field Service-Japan Foundation scholarship for one year exchange student program to Japan (2005-2006), and awardee of The Vicente Teves Locsin, Jr. Award from International Association for Human Caring (2020). 

He received his Bachelor of Engineering degree, Master of Engineering degree, and Doctor of Engineering degree in mechanical engineering from Doshisha University, Japan, in 1994, 1996, and 1999, respectively. From 1999 to 2002, he was a research associate at Kochi University of Technology, Japan. Since 2003, he has been with Tokai University, Japan, where he is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering. He was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2012. Since 1999, he has developed many human-friendly robots to support elderly people and improve their quality of life. Recently, he has proposed and developed exoskeletal robots to gently and safely support elderly people, and drone systems to improve the quality of life of elderly people. He is a member of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), the Institute of Systems, Control and Information Engineers (ISCIE), the Japan Society for Design Engineering (JSDE), the Japan Society of Nursing Research (JSNR), the International Federation for the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms (IFToMM), the Japanese Society for Regenerative Medicine and Rehabilitation (JSRMR), and the Society of Biomechanisms Japan (SOBIM Japan). He was the recipient of the Encouragement Award (Japan Society for Design Engineering (JSDE), 1999), the Best Paper Award (15th International Conference on Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Engineering, 2020), etc. 

Dr. Matsumoto, holds a Bachelors and Master’s degrees from Faculty of Engineering, Tokushima University, Tokushima City, Japan, and the Doctor of Engineering from Graduate School of Advanced Technology and Science, Information Science and Intelligent Systems, Tokushima University, Tokushima, Japan. He is Associate Professor of Tokushima University, Japan. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan (IEEJ), the Association for Natural Language Processing (ANLP), Japan Society of Kansei Engineering (JSKE), Human Interface Society (HIS), Japan Society of Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), and Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (AAAC).

Description of Research

His research focuses on emotional robots capable of natural language interaction using Kansei information processing and artificial intelligence technologies. His research focuses on Kansei Computing technology, in particular, natural language understanding in human interaction, and applying artificial intelligence to construct artificial emotion modeling and emotion recognition mechanisms. Applications of our research results include caring robots for use in sensory care and nursing situations. Currently, he is engaged in research on using a robot to listen to the status of a person fighting an illness, and on understanding the emotions of the other person in analyzing interview dialogues.

I was born in 1968 in Kobe City as a third generation overseas Chinese living in Japan. My grandfather on my father's side, founded a small Chinese restaurant in Kumamoto City before the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), and continued to operate without a break during the war, supported by the citizens of Kumamoto. My grandfather invented a soup dish associated with his hometown, Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, named Taiping Yan, and in promoting it in Kumamoto, he put into practice his wish for peace through this inexpensive vermicelli chicken soup. He generously shared his recipe for Taiping Yan with Japanese and Chinese cooks alike. Today, Taiping Yan has become one of Kumamoto's sole foods and is widely loved by the people of Kumamoto. The spirit of "Give and Give," or the spirit of altruism derived from my grandfather, has become my own guiding principle as I work in the medical field.

After graduating from Kumamoto University School of Medicine in 1994, I trained in the Department of Anesthesiology at Kumamoto University Hospital, and then moved to the Department of Neuropsychiatry at Kumamoto University Hospital, where I have practiced team Medicine in caring for patients with Schizophrenia and Mood Disorders. Notably, when I was a medical student, I studied under the late Dr. Masazumi Harada, a leading researcher of Minamata disease. As an accompanying physician, I participated in the investigation of mercury contamination in Lake Victoria, Republic of Tanzania (1998) organized by non-governmental organizations. In 1994, I joined Fujita Medical College, where learning from patients gave me joy, practicing clinical psychiatry, medical education, and clinical research based on Dr. Harada's teaching motto: "Learn from the patients, learn on the scene."

I hope to take small steps with you to spread the spirit and techniques of true caring throughout the world, focusing not only on the "illness" or "disorder" of the persons with the illness, but also on the various issues latent in each person's life, and to help them live a fulfilling life in the community. It is critical to use the philosophical perspective of caring, focusing on nurturing the wholeness and well-being of persons in caring relationships. Our clinical practice must be based on caring, empathy, and courage among the members of the interdisciplinary team. Through their support, patients can realize their goals, their hopes and dreams, and grow together through mutual caring.

Dr. Joko Gunawan earned his doctorate from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand through a fast-track program that enabled him to progress from a bachelor's degree to a Ph.D. level. In addition to his doctoral pursuits, he continues to contribute his expertise as a dedicated researcher within the esteemed university, ensuring the perpetuation of his scholarly endeavors. Currently, he serves as the Managing Editor of the esteemed Belitung Nursing Journal and actively participates as a reviewer for multiple international journals (see Publon). His extensive scholarly contributions consist of over 50 published articles, either as the sole author or co-author, which have garnered significant recognition, as reflected by his H-index of 13 as documented in Scopus. His research interests encompass Nursing, Leadership, Human Resource Management, ASEAN, and Global Health Community. Moreover, he has been acknowledged for his exceptional scholarly accomplishments, as he was included in the prestigious World's Top 2% Scientists list for the years 2021 and 2022, established by Elsevier and Stanford University. Scopus iD: 57192718324 |Web of Science Researcher iD: U-9526-2017 | ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6694-8679

Gil Soriano received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree from Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Pasay in 2010. In 2015, he earned his Master of Health Professions Education (MHPEd) from the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila under a UP Presidential Scholarship Grant. His master's thesis was partly funded by the UP- National Institutes of Health and the National Teachers Training Center for the Health Professions. Currently, he is a Dual Degree Program student, PhD in Nursing at Silliman University and PhD in Health Sciences at Tokushima University Japan under the supervision of Dr. Tetsuya Tanioka and Dr. Evalyn Abalos as a PhD candidate. He is the Managing Editor of the Journal of Health and Caring Sciences (JHCS) and the chairperson of the Committee on Operations under the Department of Nursing Research of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA). He is an Assistant Professor at the College of Allied Health at the National University Philippines. He has presented research in various national and international research forums and has published numerous research articles in reputable/indexed journals. His research interests include public health, caring science, palliative and end-of-life care, and nursing pedagogy.