On-Demand Webinars

Dr. Black is a Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate students at the College. Dr Black is a Past President of the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel and is currently on the Board of Directors. Dr Black served as the co-chair of the task force to update the definitions of the stages of pressure ulcers. She has received many awards for her work in pressure injury, most recently the Kosiak award from NPUAP for her work in deep tissue pressure injury.

Karen S. Kesten, DNP, APRN, FAAN, CCNS, CNE, CCRN-K, is director of Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects and is an associate professor of nursing in the Acute and Chronic Care Community. She is licensed as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse, a certified Acute and Critical Care Clinical Nurse Specialist and a Certified Nurse Educator. Dr. Kesten most recently served as the Director of Faculty Initiatives at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and as the liaison for the work of the APRN Clinical Training Task Force, the AACN Competency-based Education for Doctoral Prepared APRN Work Group, the Implementation of the DNP Task Force and the Task Force on Defining the Scholarship of Academic Nursing. She also designed and implemented innovative and engaging learning experiences for members of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing to include faculty development conferences, webinars, toolkits, community collaboration and leadership development programs. Academically, Dr. Kesten was an associate professor at Georgetown University and was the program director for the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Nurse Specialist program. She played a critical role in the design, development, and launch of the graduate distance learning programs and the DNP program at Georgetown University. Dr. Kesten currently serves as Immediate-past Chair on the Board of Directors for the Certification Corporation for the American Association of Critical Care Nurses. Dr. Kesten’s research and publications focus on advanced nursing practice, competency-based education and innovative educational methods.

JoAnne Konick-McMahan is a Certification Practice Specialist with AACN Certification Corporation. She works with volunteer subject matter experts and psychometricians to maintain the validity and reliability of APRN and specialty certification exams through rigorous studies of practice. The results of the studies of practice are the foundation for certification exams for acute care nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists as well as progressive and critical care nurses.

JoAnne has worked in direct care and clinical education in progressive and critical care units as well as providing transitional care. She is certified as a progressive care nurse or PCCN. JoAnne’s graduate degree focus was nursing education and she has taught in graduate and undergraduate nursing programs. JoAnne is the AACN Certification Corporation’s representative on the APRN LACE network and she enjoys answering questions about certification and the APRN Consensus Model. She appreciates the mentors in clinical practice, education and certification who have provided guidance and wisdom.

JoAnne telecommutes from Pennsylvania and loves hiking the mountain trails and gardening.

Dr. Benjamin is known as one of the nation’s most influential physician leaders because he speaks passionately and eloquently about the health issues having the most impact on our nation today. From his firsthand experience as a physician, he knows what happens when preventive care is not available and when the healthy choice is not the easy choice. As executive director of APHA since 2002, he is leading the Association’s push to make America the healthiest nation in one generation.

At APHA, Benjamin also serves as publisher of the nonprofit's monthly publication, The Nation's Health, the association's official newspaper, and the American Journal of Public Health, the profession’s premier scientific publication. He is the author of more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters. His recent book The Quest for Health Reform: A Satirical History is an exposé of the nearly 100-year quest to ensure quality affordable health coverage for all through the use of political cartoons. Benjamin is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (Formally the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and also serves on the boards for many organizations including Research!America and the Reagan-Udall Foundation. In 2008, 2014 and 2016 he was named one of the top 25 minority executives in health care by Modern Healthcare Magazine, in addition to being voted among the 100 most influential people in health care from 2007-2017.

Dr. Deborah Trautman assumed the role of AACN’s President and Chief Executive Officer in June 2014. Formerly the Executive Director of the Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Transformation at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Trautman has held clinical and administrative leadership positions at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. She also served as the Vice President of Patient Care Services for Howard County General Hospital and as Director of Nursing for Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Since her appointment at AACN, Deb has been asked to join a number of high-profile boards and advisory groups. The Secretary of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Special Medical Advisory Group (SMAG), which advises the VA Secretary on matters related to healthcare delivery, research, education, training of healthcare staff and planning on shared care issues facing VA and the Department of Defense. In addition, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) named her program director of the New Careers in Nursing project, and her colleagues with the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) elected her to serve as Chair as of 2019. She also serves on the Joint Commission’s Chief Nurse Executive Council.

Dr. Oxhorn has practiced clinical nursing in the areas of critical care, emergency, bone marrow transplant, and post anesthesia care for 11 years prior to completing a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Physiology and Pharmacology. Upon completing his Master's in Nursing with a concentration in Adult Education, Dr. Oxhorn held a tenure-track academic appointment at Truckee Meadows Community College. He joined Roseman University of Health Sciences as an Assistant Professor of Nursing and Skills Laboratory Coordinator. The following year he was appointed as the Director, Simulation and Skills Laboratory and was appointed as Dean, College of Nursing in April 2016 after serving in the role of Interim Dean since June 2015.

Dr. Carley is an assistant professor of Nursing at Roseman University of Health Sciences in Henderson, NV with 40 years of combined experience in clinical nursing and nursing education. She has experience in all levels of nursing education, including serving as a director of a simulation laboratory.

Kim Litwack is Dean and Professor in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Nursing. Dr. Litwack has a PhD in Higher Educational Administration, a DNP in Nursing and is also a practicing Family Nurse Practitioner. In her role as Dean, she is responsible for creating the environment for the successful implementation of the mission and vision of the College and the University. The College vision explicitly values innovation, while the mission calls on the College to create innovative, quality educational programs. The creation and implementation of the Flexible Option for BSN completion is one example of our innovation.

Lisa Mihlbauer MSN, BSN, RN, IBCLC, CNE - Lisa is a Clinical Associate Professor and the Director of RN-to-BSN Completion Programs at the UW-Milwaukee College of Nursing. Lisa has more than 30 years of classroom, online and clinical teaching experience in nursing education. Lisa was instrumental in development of the UW-Milwaukee College of Nursing’s RN-to-BSN FLEX Option competency based program and has created and taught in multiple competency sets. Lisa is board certified in clinical lactation and nursing education. Lisa has presented at the national Competency Based Exchange conference for the past three years and has also presented faculty development and educational workshops at multiple local, regional and national nursing education conferences.

Dr. Swider is a Professor in the Department of Community, Systems and Mental Health Nursing at Rush University in Chicago. Dr. Swider has practiced in acute care, home health care and public health settings over the past thirty years. Her research has focused on program development and evaluation of community health workers, engaging urban communities in health promotion, and health policy to support health promotion efforts. She has taught public health nursing at the pre-licensure and graduate/specialty levels at several universities and co-directed 10 years of HRSA-supported work to develop an online doctoral program in Advanced Public Health Nursing, ensuring that it met the Quad Council competencies for Public Health Nursing practice. She is a member of a number of public health and public health nursing organizations and is a past president of the Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE). In her role with ACHNE, she served on the Quad Council for Public Health Nursing organizations and was a member of the Task Force that revised the Competencies for Public Health Nursing (2010-2012). In 2011, Dr. Swider was appointed by President Obama to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion and Integrative and Public Health, a group designed to advise on the development and implementation of the National Prevention Strategy. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago. In 2016, she was appointed to serve on the Community Preventive Services Task Force of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kate Gawlik is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Nursing, Director of the Health and Wellness Innovation in Healthcare program, and Project Manager for the Million Hearts® initiative at The Ohio State University. She is board certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner. Her clinical interests are cardiovascular population health, preventive medicine, clinician well-being, evidence-based physical assessment, and online nursing education. She has taught advanced assessment for over 10 years and has been teaching it all online for five of those years. She was awarded the 2018 American Association of Nurse Practitioner State Award for Excellence for Ohio. She was inducted as a Fellow into the American Association of Nurse Practitioners in June 2018.

Alice M. Teall is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Nursing, Director of Telehealth Services, and Director of Academic Wellness Programming at the Ohio State University College of Nursing. While serving as director of the online Family Nurse Practitioner program, she was honored with the Ohio State University Provost Award for Distinguished Teaching. An experienced educator, Alice Teall has taught assessment online and on campus for students across nursing programs including traditional undergraduate, RN-BSN completion, accelerated graduate entry, graduate, and doctoral programs. Dr. Teall is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners; her contributions to advanced practice education include innovative use of synchronous web-conferencing, incorporation of wellness coaching techniques in clinical practice, and use of telehealth as an evaluation strategy for distance students.

Dr. Sullivan-Marx is Dean of NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing and the Erline Perkins McGriff Professor of Nursing. She is a renowned nursing leader, educator, and clinician known for her work on innovative approaches to primary care and payment methods for nurses, particularly through Medicaid and Medicare. She is also known for her work on developing healthcare policies in community-based settings.

Dr. Sullivan-Marx holds fellowships in the Gerontology Society of America and the New York Academy of Medicine. From 2010-12, she was an American Political Science Congressional Fellow and Senior Advisor to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Medicaid and Medicare Coordination where she worked to bring models of care to scale.

Dr. Sullivan-Marx was the first nurse to serve as the American Nurses Association representative to the American Medical Association’s Resource Based Relative Value Update Committee, where she was able to demonstrate that the work of nurse practitioners and physicians can be valued equally through various payment structures. She received the Hippensteel Founders Award for Excellence in Practice Award (2011), and the Doris Schwartz Gerontological Nursing Research Award (2013). She is recipient of the Distinguished Alumni of the University of Rochester School of Nursing and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Dr. Sullivan-Marx assumed the presidency of the American Academy of Nursing in October 2019 where she is both a fellow (1997) and Edge Runner.

Dr. Bakewell-Sachs is Vice President for Nursing Affairs, Professor, and Dean at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) School of Nursing. Dr. Bakewell-Sachs has a clinical background as a pediatric nurse practitioner and is a nationally recognized scholar and clinical expert in the care of prematurely born infants, as well as a recognized expert in nursing education.

Dr. Bakewell-Sachs was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Executive Nurse Fellow, Cohort 2007, where her leadership development focused on strategic effectiveness and nursing education. Prior to joining OHSU, Dr. Bakewell-Sachs served as Dean and Interim Provost at The College of New Jersey, and also served as the Program Director for the New Jersey Nursing Initiative, an RWJF program aimed at addressing the nurse faculty shortage through new curriculum models, faculty development, and academic-practice partnerships.

Roberta Lavin, is Professor and Executive Associate Dean of Academic Programs at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, College of Nursing. She spent twenty years as U.S. Public Health Service officer. She began her career at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC on an acute psychiatric admission unit for those who were homeless. In her work she has coordinated mass migrations in Guatemala, managed health care in an immigration detention center in Batavia, New York before becoming the Chief of Field Operations of the Division of Immigration Health Services, worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Tucson, Arizona, and spent a few months “tooling around” the South Pacific on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

Dr. Lavin has served as the as the President and Secretary of the Federal Nurses Association, Director of the Society for the Advancement of Disaster Nursing, and the designated federal officer for the National Commission on Children and Disasters. She has received funding for her work in disaster research and program development from ANCC and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, FEMA, and OPRE. She has been funded by HRSA and FIPSE for DNP program development and the inclusion of cultural competency.

Dr. Langan’s clinical expertise is in Adult Medical/Surgical and Community-based nursing. Her research and interests involve disaster preparedness, response and recovery and qualitative methods.

Colleen Leners is the Director of Policy at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) in Washington, D.C. AACN serves as the voice of academic nursing, encompassing education, research, and practice. Dr. Leners was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow in the office of Senator John Thune (R-SD) of the Senate Finance Committee. Colleen serves on the Case Western Reserve Alumni Board and many committees for the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). She has maintained an active family nurse practitioner practice for over 26 years and has served our country in the United States Army Nurse Corps. She has many notable achievements both civilian and military and was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and in American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. Dr. Leners was awarded the Bronze Star for her service overseas.

Dr. Leners served as a Traumatic Brian Injury Program manager, created a nurse-managed primary care clinic for Wounded Warriors at Navy Medical Center San Diego (C5). She has also been a registered nurse and nurse practitioner for nearly four decades.

She received her DNP in Leadership from Case Western Reserve University, MSN FNP from University of San Diego and her BSN from California State University Dominguez Hills.