Makayla Cordoza ’08 named 2025 Distinguished Nursing Alumnus of the Year
Makayla Cordoza ’08 has spent her career chasing an answer to a deceptively simple question: How do we help patients — and care teams — sleep better?
Her work sits at the intersection of nursing science, human performance and critical care innovation. From hospital ICUs to deep space research labs, Makayla is shaping the future of sleep health and recovery, and mentoring the next generation of nurse-scientists along the way.
“I am where I am today because of great mentors,” she said. “They have encouraged and supported me along my career trajectory.”
For her groundbreaking contributions to nursing, research and education, Linfield honors her as the 2025 Distinguished Nursing Alumnus of the Year.
A career that began at the bedside
Makayla’s nursing career started in high school as a certified nursing assistant. While attending Linfield, she worked as an emergency room technician at Good Samaritan while in nursing school at Linfield. She credits those early years — and her favorite Linfield course on emergency and trauma care — with sparking her lifelong passion for critical care.
“It was great when, years later, I was able to come back to Linfield to teach a simulation on cardiac arrest and ACLS,” she said. “I thought back to my experience in that course and how much I enjoyed those simulations myself.”
After earning her BSN in 2008, she worked as an intensive care unit (ICU) staff nurse at Legacy Good Samaritan and then as a nursing education and practice specialist at Legacy Health. There, she implemented evidence-based practice standards and supported nurse-led research — work that ultimately ignited her interest in improving outcomes for patients with critical illness.
From the ICU to the lab (and beyond)
Makayla went on to earn a master’s degree in clinical research administration from George Washington University and a Ph.D. in nursing science from the University of Washington. Her doctoral research focused on how energy expenditure shifts during therapeutic hypothermia, especially during periods of shivering.
She later completed a postdoctoral and research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where she contributed to several NASA-funded projects aimed at identifying who might be most resilient to the stressors of deep space travel, such as a future trip to Mars.
“This was a slight departure from my primary research interests,” she said. “But, I was honored to be able to contribute to an important area of human exploration.”
A leader in sleep science
Now an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, Makayla also holds appointments in the Department of Surgery and at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship Center.
Her research — funded by the National Institutes of Health and other major sources — investigates how poor sleep during and after critical illness affects long-term brain function.
She also examines how hospital environments impact everyone in them — not just patients. In one study, her team found that nurses who spent time in a hospital garden reported lower stress and fewer symptoms of burnout.
Global work, local impact
Makayla’s collaborations stretch across the globe. From evaluating how physical spaces affect sleep and burnout in Swedish nurses to studying alertness and work hours in Japanese physicians, her participation in research as part of a team has supported national health policy reforms. Here in the U.S., she’s shown that extended overnight shifts negatively affect medical residents’ sleep and performance.
Her work isn’t just research — it’s driving national policy and clinical standards.
She helped write the Causes, Consequences, and Treatments of Sleep and Circadian Disruption in the ICU for the American Thoracic Society. She also worked to update the Pain, Anxiety, Agitation/Sedation, Delirium, Immobility, and Sleep (PADIS) national guidelines with the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM). Currently, Makayla leads the development of new sleep promotion guidelines for ICU staff with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). This Practice Alert will be available to more than 100,000 critical care nurse members nationwide.
Mentor, teacher, Wildcat at heart
Despite her busy schedule, Makayla prioritizes mentoring. She leads a team of trainees and students, recently helping an undergraduate student publish a first author manuscript and guiding her research coordinator through presenting data at a national meeting.
Makayla also teaches courses at Vanderbilt, as she strongly believes in the growth and development of future nurse leaders, clinicians and scientists.
She credits Linfield with helping her build the foundation for that leadership — a place where her curiosity was encouraged, her skills were sharpened and her confidence took root.
Congratulations to Makayla Cordoza ’08, Linfield’s 2025 Distinguished Nursing Alumnus of the Year.