Dr. Dawn Aycock is the Principal Investigator of the Stroke Counseling for Risk Reduction (SCORRE) program. She is an Associate Professor and Director of the nursing PhD program in the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions at Georgia State University. Dr. Aycock is a registered nurse and certified adult health nurse practitioner whose career has focused on advancing and promoting nursing science through research, education and service. She has coordinated several pharmaceutical funded clinical trials and NIH and HRSA-funded studies. It was her experience caring for stroke survivors in clinical and community settings, coordinating studies examining family caregivers of stroke survivors, and her personal family history of stroke that led to her program of research in primary stroke prevention.

Dr. Aycock’s research has moved primary stroke prevention science forward by increasing awareness of stroke as a preventable disease and addressing its disparities among African Americans/Blacks. She is a leader in developing, implementing, and disseminating effective interventions to prevent/delay first stroke in young adult African Americans. In 2014, she developed the Stroke Counseling for Risk Reduction (SCORRE) intervention, an innovative age and culturally relevant intervention designed to correct inaccurate stroke risk perceptions and improve diet and exercise behaviors in this increasingly at risk, understudied group.  

Dr. Aycock is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and in the American Heart Association. She is also one of 11 nurse scientists selected for the inaugural 2020 cohort of the Betty Irene Moore Fellowships for Nurse Leaders and Innovators. Dr. Aycock’s work has been published in top-tiered journals and presented at professional conferences and events, most notably she was a keynote speaker at the 2019 Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research.