UOPX faculty spotlight: Dr. Sun Jones

Plenty of songs, poetry and films have tackled the subject of heartbreak. Others have expounded on the merits of pure survival. But rare is the human being who knows firsthand what devastation and overcoming the odds feels like — and can smile about it.

Such is the province of Sun Jones, DNP, RN, FNP-BC, FAANP, who serves as systematic program evaluator and curriculum manager in the University of Phoenix College of Nursing. Born and raised in South Korea, she immigrated to the U.S. in high school, studied microbiology in college, got married and had a daughter who passed away at 3½ from an unspecified neurological disorder. 

As Jones coped with the loss of her daughter, the dissolution of her marriage and raising her younger son, she found herself working 12-hour shifts five days a week to qualify for a nurse practitioner program. The arduous time was both a coping mechanism for Jones’ grief and a pathway to a better future.

“I’m smiling now, but it was a very hard time,” she says. “It was painful. But fortunately, because I was busy and I was doing things, I was surviving. … When we were in Korea, we had to survive. There was no self-pity. We just had to do what it took.”

Fortunately for Jones, buckling down in service to a goal proved to be a wise investment in her future.

Survival and self-discipline feel like cousins in a family of virtues, and Jones developed both at an early age. Her father passed away when she was a child; her mother immigrated to the U.S. as a seamstress three years before she could bring her children over.

By the time Jones arrived, she was a teenager. Did she have qualms about leaving the life she’d always known?

“[My family] prepared us to move, so we didn’t really have a choice,” she says in her pragmatic way. “If we’d stayed in Korea, there’s no way we could’ve attended university because we could not afford it.”

In the U.S., however, Jones found herself eligible for scholarships and equipped with a high school guidance counselor who helped her navigate the process. Jones was good at math and science, but her English was imperfect, and her career path remained unclear, even after she got married and gave birth to her daughter. Then, when her daughter became ill at 10 months, Jones’ life shifted into focus.

Her daughter’s condition required constant care, including oxygen and regular suctioning. Jones’ mother came to live with them to help, and Jones’ sister suggested that Jones consider earning her nursing degree. 

Her sister had put Jones on a rewarding career path in more ways than one. Not only was nursing a good fit but so was taking good advice. An academic advisor, for example, recommended Jones pursue the nurse practitioner program after she completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. This proved to be an advantageous move for Jones, who still maintains a clinical practice one day a week. And when a friend urged Jones to join University of Phoenix as a faculty member in 2011, just a year after she completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice, she overcame her hesitations about language and teaching and took on the role.

According to Katherine Kenny, DNP, RN, ANP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, Jones brings more than knowledge to her role as an instructor. Kenny serves as Arizona State University (ASU) College of Nursing’s associate dean of academic enterprise and has known Jones since Jones was a doctoral student in 2008. 

Jones, meanwhile, views the position of instructor as a two-way street. “One thing I’ve realized is [that] as you teach, you learn more,” she says. 

Today, Jones has turned her self-discipline and sacrifice into the freedom to pursue her passions. As a nurse practitioner, she was inducted into the 2024 class of Fellows of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners , an honor that came on the heels of numerous awards and accolades  for her extensive volunteer service.

As a Korean immigrant, she pays forward to other immigrants the gifts of time and guidance she received. “My goal after I became a nurse practitioner was to serve my community members,” Jones says.

To that end, she helped found the Arizona Korean Nurses Association, which provides healthcare services to the Korean community, and the Korean American Nurses Foundation , a nonprofit organization that caters to underserved minority communities with free vaccination and healthcare clinics.

“During the pandemic, she worked diligently to make sure that the Asian community had access to quality care,” says Evelyn Cesarotti, PhD, FAANP, a professor emeritus with the College of Nursing at ASU and a mentor to Jones. “Her compassion and example inspired many in the community to assist in delivering this care. She continues to provide other care needed in the Asian community with screening as well as flu clinics.”

Kenny concurs. “As a Korean nurse practitioner, her personal knowledge of the healthcare disparities and educational needs of underrepresented Asians is demonstrated through consistent FNP practice since 2001,” she says. “She is a relentless advocate and a visionary for health equity for Asian minority communities who takes action and inspires others to also act on behalf of others.”

Jones isn’t done. She brings her wealth of experience — personal, professional, educational — to bear on her role as a curriculum evaluator at UOPX’s College of Nursing. She brings it to Korea when she travels there with her husband and lectures nurse practitioner students.

Who knows? Maybe she even uses it to improve her bowling score: Jones is a committed amateur bowler who travels to compete with her husband and adult son as well as her other teammates.

Opportunity, after all, takes many forms. And Jones has used hers to grow as a nurse practitioner, instructor and leader who is impacting her community and beyond.

Learn more about the College of Nursing  at University of Phoenix!