FORT KENT – Rachel Albert, University of Maine at Fort Kent nursing division director, has been officially recognized by the Legislature.

The legislative sentiment passed by the Maine House and Senate was presented to Albert on Friday, Oct. 17, in her office by state Rep. Troy Jackson, an independent from Fort Kent.

Jackson was influenced to nominate Albert after learning of her selection last spring as an evaluator for other nursing programs throughout the country by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.

Albert also recently published an article in Advance for Nurses, a publication serving registered nurses in New England and the eastern United States.

The piece, titled “Tuning Out the Pain,” discusses her research on the use of music and guided imagery to lower pain and anxiety in hospital emergency departments. Albert has been conducting research and studying the topic for several years.

Albert has been a UMFK professor of nursing since September 1990. She was named director and chair of the division in 1999 and received promotion to associate professor that same year.

A 1985 alumna of the UMFK bachelor’s degree in nursing program, she received her doctorate in 2001 from Case Western Reserve University Frances Payne School of Nursing in Ohio and her master’s degree in nursing from the University of Texas at Houston in 1990.