Overview
Dr. Kayla Alvares, PhD, RN, RNC-NIC is a neonatal intensive care nurse, researcher, and professor whose career bridges clinical excellence with academic scholarship. She earned her Ph.D. in Nursing from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in May 2025, building upon her Master of Science in Nursing and Healthcare Education (2022) and Bachelor of Science in Nursing (2019) from the same institution.
Currently teaching at Northeastern University’s ABSN program across Fall River and Burlington sites, she teaches courses ranging from advanced health assessment and pharmacology to nursing research. Her academic journey began in 2020 as a clinical instructor and has evolved through multiple teaching roles, demonstrating her commitment to educating the next generation of nurses. She has also taught undergraduate BSN and ABSN nursing students in didactic, laboratory, and clinical settings.
Her research focuses on nurse-infant-parent bonding in the NICU setting, she examines the complex relationships between nurses, infants, and families in neonatal care with expertise in family-integrated care and evidence-based neonatal nursing practice.
She is actively engaged in research focused on neonatal and family-centered care. She has authored peer-reviewed publications and presented her work regionally and internationally, contributing to the advancement of neonatal nursing practice, education, and research. Her scholarship has been presented at prestigious conferences including the Eastern Nursing Research Society, the International Family Nursing Association, and the New England Association of Neonatal Nursing.
Selected Publications
Horowitz, J., Posmontier, B., Geller, P., McDonough, M., Alvares, K., Elgohail, M., Wang, Y., Chang, K., & Ma, T. [Accepted]. Translating Combined Mother-Baby Interaction Therapy and Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Postpartum Depression from In-Person to Digital Delivery via MommaConnect. European Society of Medicine.
McDonough, M. R., DiCarlo, K., & Alvares, K. (2025). Family integrative care: An integrative review of a collaborative care environment in the neonatal intensive care unit. Critical Care Nursing Clinics, 1-13.
Posmontier B, Horowitz JA, Geller PA, Elgohail M, McDonough M, Alvares K, et al. (2024). Applying the PRECEDE-PROCEED model to develop MommaConnect: A digital healthcare platform for addressing postpartum depression and improving infant well-being. Explor Neurosci. 2024;3:309–20. https://doi.org/10.37349/en.2024.00052
Alvares, K. & Chin, E. (2023). Nurse-infant bonding: A theory synthesis. Journal of Neonatal Nursing, 30(4), 375-379. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnn.2023.11.012
Courses
HLTH 2100 Interprofessional Ethics for Individual and Population Health
NRSG 2215 Foundations of Nursing: Cultivating Professional Identity and Practice
NRSG 2350 Pathophysiology and Pharmacology
NRSG 2221 Lab for Health Assessment and Fundamental Nursing Skills
NRSG 3334 Lab for Advanced Health Assessment and Fundamental Nursing Skills
NRSG 5220 Introduction to Research in Nursing
