Janet Riggs, Associate
Cardiovascular nurse and researcher, gardener, art student
Janet is a retired cardiovascular critical care nurse and researcher with a specialty in heart failure nursing. She worked closely with both physicians and nurses to meet the needs of this special population, publishing articles on the subject in nursing journals. She received her BSN from the University of KY (‘72), her MSN from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (’88) and her DrNP from Drexel University (’15) in Philadelphia. She practiced and taught nursing in several facilities including Rutgers University, Villanova University, and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She was also able to practice as a Research Project Manager at the University of Pennsylvania for about 20 years. The pinnacle of her career may have been when she served as President of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, Philadelphia Chapter, holding major conferences to raise funds for the chapter to support novice nursing researchers.
She has volunteered since she was a teenager in several venues including most recently for the League of Women Voters, Cape Cod Area and the First Parish Brewster Unitarian Universalist Church. One of her favorite volunteer opportunities was to run a first aid station at the Kentucky State Horse Park in her hometown of Lexington, KY in conjunction with the Fayette County Red Cross.
In March 2022, with her husband Rob MacIver (AB ’74, Harvard), she relocated to Brewster full time from New Jersey with their standard poodle, Roxie. She has been able to return to gardening, successfully harvesting an array of vegetables, as well as taking painting classes at the Cape Cod Museum of Art and the Brewster Council on Ageing. What she likes most about retirement is meeting so many new people and not having to get up at 5 AM.