New UAH Nursing Dean Dr. Hyochol Ahn sees exciting future for college, healthcare, community

Dr. Hyochol Brian Ahn, the new dean of the College of Nursing at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), stands outside the Nursing Building on July 27, 2026. Ahn began his deanship on July 1, 2026. He is also executive director of the UAH-Huntsville Hospital Healthcare System Nursing Leadership Collaborative.

Michael Mercier | UAH

With high-achieving students, innovative new programs and partnerships to expand its reach, the College of Nursing is thriving at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System. The college’s many accomplishments impressed new Nursing Dean Dr. Hyochol Brian Ahn, and he’s eager to lead it toward an even brighter future.

“I’m extremely proud of our faculty and staff,” says Ahn after his first month on the job. “We have exceptional faculty dedicated to our students’ success. Our first-time passing rate is 98% for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX).”

The most recent national average for registered nurses is 86.7%. UAH has rated 90% or above for the past 10 years, with graduates reaching 99% or 100% in each of the last five years.

Ahn cites UAH’s strong nurse practitioner program and the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program developed last year as examples of the college growing to meet the healthcare needs of the community. He wants to raise the bar by adding a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) program.

“CRNAs are essential for any surgeries. Even dental surgery needs a CRNA. Our CRNA will be one of a very few schools in Alabama as well as in the United States. There are only about 100 CRNA programs in the United States, with just three located in Alabama. We are working with Huntsville Hospital to develop our inaugural CRNA program.”

Ahn is also excited about another recent program, UAH Neighborhood Nursing, which takes healthcare directly to the community. In January 2026, UAH faculty and students began the first phase of the program with onsite health screenings plus primary preventive care at select sites.

“UAH Neighborhood Nursing is something unique here at UAH, and it demonstrates that nursing is not only hospital nursing,” he says. “I’ve met a few organizations involved with UAH Neighborhood Nursing, and we would like to strengthen it to develop a model to protect and enhance healthcare, especially in rural areas. We have so many rural areas around here, so I see a lot of possibilities.”

Ahn views his deanship through two lens that work together to create the full picture.

“As a dean internally, I need to meet the needs of our faculty, staff and students. Externally, I need to meet the healthcare needs of the Huntsville area population. We would like to strengthen and expand UAH Neighborhood Nursing to provide better healthcare services in collaboration with many clinical settings, including Huntsville Hospital.”

Vital partnership for service

Along with the deanship, Ahn’s position includes serving as executive director of the UAH-Huntsville Hospital Healthcare System Nursing Leadership Collaborative. This link between academic nursing at UAH and clinical operations at HH Health gives students essential practice caring for real patients and provides the hospital with an employment pipeline for qualified nurses.

“Nursing is a clinical science, a practice science,” Ahn points out. “All of our education research should be reflected in our practice setting, how we take care of our patients. Our mission is to build nursing workforces – nurses and nurse practitioners – to serve our population locally, regionally and nationally. There is a huge nursing shortage in America as well as the Huntsville area. This collaboration between academia and the practice setting is very important.”

Ahn has experience with these partnerships. He previously served as professor and dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona, where he built a collaboration with Banner Health System. Before that, he was professor, associate dean and director of the Brain Science & Symptom Management Center at Florida State University, which partners with Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare. Now his goal is to expand the relationship between UAH and HH Health.

“Our curriculum should reflect how to solve the hospital workforce problems like nursing shortages and how to build top-level nurse practitioner programs to be the front-line workers for our population’s health,” he says. “I really like this collaborative leadership, and that is what I envision as an administrator to support our community. That is one of the reasons I wanted to come to UAH.”

Nursing + engineering = innovation

Ahn’s second reason – the strong reputation of the UAH College of Engineering – reflects his longtime passion for the ways engineering and nursing can work together to improve healthcare. He earned his first degrees in engineering before he pursued the nursing route.

“I got my bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Seoul, South Korea, and I worked in the computer industry for six years. Then I got a full scholarship from the University of Florida. I completed my master’s degree, and I continued to my Ph.D. program in electrical and computer engineering.”

Ahn was working in biomedical engineering to develop a better neuroimaging protocol when he realized he needed to know more about human health to achieve his goals. The University of Florida (UF) had developed an accelerated BSN program, and it was looking for graduate students to combine their disciplines with nursing science. His wife, Eunyoung Choi, currently a registered nurse at Huntsville Hospital, fully supported his plan.

“During my Ph.D. program in engineering, I got my bachelor’s degree in nursing. Then I wanted to know more about nurses and nurse practitioners, so I pursued my nurse practitioner master’s degree. I’m a board-certified nurse practitioner.”

He continued at UF, receiving a Ph.D. in nursing, postgraduate training in the clinical and translational science program, a master’s in medical sciences and a graduate certificate in aging and geriatric practice. He became one of the school’s first graduates to join the UF Nursing faculty.

Ahn’s healthcare vision harmonizes with the longstanding collaboration between UAH Nursing and the College of Engineering’s Systems Management and Production (SMAP) Center. Since 2020, SMAP has developed and manufactured a wide range of realistic training models to help students practice essential skills for treating patients. These models are primarily used in Nursing’s Simulation & Learning Innovation Center (SLIC), designed to enhance nursing education through advanced instructional technology and immersive clinical simulations.

Dr. Hyochol Brian Ahn, far left, and his wife, Eunyoung Choi, far right, enjoy a family vacation in Switzerland with their sons, Dasol and Brian Ahn.

Courtesy Dr. Hyochol Ahn

“This is a true example of how engineering and nursing work together to make better education and better practice,” Ahn says, “and it’s not only in nurse and nurse practitioner programs. My dream is to build a nursing engineering program at UAH at some point in time.

“There are some universities that have biomedical engineering, but there is no nursing engineering. Nursing engineering is focusing on those kinds of technology for our nurses and nurse practitioners for decision making. That is one of my dreams, and that’s why I came to nursing.”

Developing new therapies together

Along with leading the College of Nursing and directing the HH Health partnership, Ahn says he brought a third hat to UAH: director of a new Brain Digital Technology Innovation Laboratory.

“We are building the lab, and we are developing brain stimulation therapy especially for persons with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. There is no cure, but we can develop some brain stimulation therapy.”

Ahn completed a $2.4 million National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Nursing Research grant in 2025 that combined home-based transcranial direct current stimulation and mindfulness-based meditation to manage pain in older adults with knee osteoarthritis, and he produced more than 120 publications. He is presently involved in a $2.3 million Department of Defense (DOD) grant for treating pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans.

“When I moved here, I brought my DOD project here. I’m working with the University of Texas Health Science Center to do the multi-site clinical trial for brain stimulation therapy for veterans with PTSD. I’m working with many science projects based on my previous NIH project and current DOD project.”

Ahn emphasizes the multimodal nature of the research.

“We need computer scientists to develop the paradigm and then analyze the brain signal, and we need electrical and computer engineers to develop better brain electrical stimulation devices. The overall goal is to reduce the healthcare cost, so that economic analysis with the business team is important. We can develop these clinical education models with our education experts to better deliver clinical education to our patients.”

Ahn appreciates UAH’s collaborative atmosphere.

“They try to build the culture of how all these disciplines work together to make a better environment, a better society. We are all working together to make something better and innovative. That is my first impression of UAH – and the people are very kind.”