Behind every published nursing study is a question that matters to someone: a patient hoping for safer care, a student finding their confidence, or a nurse searching for a healthier workplace. When those questions generate knowledge that other researchers use, their influence travels—across institutions, disciplines and borders.
Beta Nu Delta Nursing Society is celebrating five members recognised in the 2026 Stanford–Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists listing: Professor Rozzano Locsin, Professor Jerome Cleofas, Professor Violeta Lopez, Dr. Leodoro Labrague and Dr. Janet Alexis delos Santos.
The society’s announcement brings together scholars working in the Philippines, the United States and Australia. Their recognition offers a moment to celebrate individual achievement while considering a larger story: Filipino nurses’ contribution to the knowledge informing health care worldwide.
Research that reaches beyond its origins
The Stanford–Elsevier database provides standardised indicators of research citation impact, with separate datasets for career-long and single-year influence. Its 2026 update draws on Scopus data and includes measures accounting for authorship and collaboration. Recognition therefore concerns the reach of published scholarship, rather than simply the number of papers produced.
For nursing, that reach matters because research creates opportunities to examine familiar problems differently. A study can challenge an assumption, identify an overlooked experience or provide the foundation for another investigation.
The five honorees represent different scholarly interests, yet their collective recognition makes one message visible: nursing is a profession that generates knowledge as well as applies it.
Keeping caring central in a technological world
Professor Rozzano Locsin of Florida Atlantic University/Tokushima University has developed an influential body of scholarship exploring technology and caring in nursing. His work on Technological Competency as Caring examines how technological knowledge can support understanding persons receiving care.
That focus speaks to a continuing challenge for contemporary nursing. As equipment, information systems and digital tools become increasingly prominent, nurses must keep the person at the centre of attention.
Locsin’s scholarship offers a way to consider technological competence as part of caring practice. For students and practitioners, it invites reflection on what it means to know someone beyond the information displayed on a screen.
Connecting health with everyday social realities
Professor Jerome Cleofas of De La Salle University brings nursing and health social science into conversation. His research includes student mental health, quality of life and the relationships between digital experiences and well-being.
These interests direct attention towards the environments in which people study, interact and seek support. They encourage questions about how everyday circumstances shape health, particularly among young people.
His inclusion in the society’s celebration also highlights the possibilities of a nursing background extending into interdisciplinary scholarship. Understanding health requires attention to social relationships, institutions and lived experience, alongside clinical knowledge.
Sustaining nursing’s scholarly conversation
Professor Violeta Lopez of the University of Technology Sydney represents another important dimension of this collective achievement: sustained engagement with nursing scholarship across professional concerns. Her recent co-authored work includes discussion of the continuing contribution of nurse leaders beyond retirement.
Her recognition creates an opportunity to consider how scholarly influence develops over time. Research becomes part of an ongoing conversation, revisited and extended as new questions emerge.
For younger nurses, that perspective is encouraging. A meaningful academic contribution grows through continued inquiry, thoughtful collaboration and the willingness to remain engaged with the profession’s changing needs.
Examining the conditions that shape care
Dr. Leodoro Labrague of the University of Oklahoma studies health systems and workforce factors affecting patient safety. His interests include leadership, organisational environments, workforce sustainability and care processes.
These concerns connect the experiences of nurses with the functioning of health services. They ask how workplaces can better support professionals while strengthening the care patients receive.
Dr. Janet Alexis delos Santos of the University of the Philippines Manila School of Health Sciences is likewise celebrated among the five honorees. Her published collaborative research includes examining missed nursing care and nurses’ assessments of care quality during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Such questions bring professional experience into research, helping make the challenges surrounding care visible and open to examination.
An achievement that invites others forward
For Beta Nu Delta Nursing Society, celebrating these members can also inspire the next generation of researchers. Students beginning a thesis, clinicians noticing recurring problems and educators supporting new investigators all have a place in nursing’s research community.
The listing captures one dimension of scholarly influence. The wider opportunity is to turn recognition into encouragement: to ask worthwhile questions, support emerging scholars and make evidence accessible to those who need it.
Five names now stand together in the society’s celebration. Their achievement invites many more nurses to see themselves as contributors to knowledge—and to begin with the questions closest to their communities.
