Speaker

Denise Robertson, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, CNL
Associate Chief Nurse
Tuscaloosa Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Dr. Denise Robertson is an experienced nursing professional with three decades in the field. She holds nursing degrees from the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is dual-board certified as a Nurse Executive-Advanced and Clinical Nurse Leader.

As the Associate Chief Nurse at the Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center, she oversees nursing services for Primary and Specialty Care and serves as a certified VA mentor and coach. She is the immediate past President of the Alabama State Nurses Association’s (ASNA) District 2 and currently serves as the Mentor Community Manager for the American Nurses Association, providing guidance on effective mentoring relationships.

Dr. Robertson is a gifte d writer and has authored several pieces for the GNSA Bulletin and has significantly contributed to engaging over 10,000 student members nationwide. Her article, "Mentorship Matters," published in the American Nurse Journal, aims to inspire nurses about the importance of mentoring.

Dr. Robertson's dedication to mentorship earned her the 2021 ASNA Mentorship Award, recognizing her exceptional support for nurses’ development. Her contributions have a profound impact on the nursing profession and the communities she serves.
 

Speakers & Facilitator

Brigit Carter, PhD, RN, CCRN, FAAN
Chief Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Officer
American Association of Colleges

Dr. Brigit Carter, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer joined American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) in February 2023. She is Professor Emerita at the Duke University School of Nursing, where she served as the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion from 2018-2023. From 2015-2018 she served as the Director of the DUSON Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program. Dr. Carter earned her BSN at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) in 1998, a Master of Science in Nursing Education from University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2002, and a PhD in Nursing from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. Her current educational research is focused on understanding students' experiences with microaggressions and the development of strategies to mitigate the impact of microaggressions. Dr. Carter also has a focus on strategies intended to increase historically marginalized students in nursing and understand individual-level social determinants that serve as barriers to achieving nursing education. Dr. Carter is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, an Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity, and a Duke Teaching for Equity fellow. 

Allison Lewinski, PhD, MPH, RN
Assistant Professor
Duke University School of Nursing

Dr. Lewinski is a health services researcher with a focus on eHealth interventions and chronic illness self-management. Her work sits at the intersection of precision medicine and population health. Dr. Lewinski’s interest in health services and nursing research, specifically in developi ng and implementing sustainable interventions to improve health outcomes, is an extension of her experiences in public health and nursing. Dr. Lewinski aims to develop meaningful interventions that are relevant, appropriate, and can be implemented in real-world clinical settings with interdisciplinary collaborators. Her use of mixed methods enables her to understand how individuals engage with healthcare teams, how best to support behavior change in diverse populations and with varying disease states, and how to foster stronger engagement with the healthcare system. Additionally, Dr. Lewinski is interested in examining intervention implementation and adaptation as a means to understand how, why, when, and for what populations and settings interventions work. Dr. Lewinski’s career development award examines the association of diabetes distress and related factors using quantitative and qualitative methods in order to develop a novel, nurse-led intervention to improve self-management in Veterans with type 2 diabetes. Dr. Lewinski completed her postdoctoral fellowship in health services research at the Durham Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation at the Durham VA. She completed her PhD in Nursing at Duke University School of Nursing, a Master of Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education at University of Michigan, a Bachelor of Science in Zoology at Michigan State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Maryville University in St. Louis.

Winifred Quinn, PhD
Director, Nursing Workforce & Policy
AARP Center for Health Equity through Nursing

Dr. Quinn is the director, nursing workforce & policy, at the AARP Center for Health Equity through Nursing within the AARP Public Policy Institute (PPI). She co-leads a national campaign dedicated to improving health care through nursing, the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. She oversees a team that supports action coalitions in each state and the District of Columbia that work to implement the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations from its landmark 2011 report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. Dr. Quinn also assists with the Campaign for Action’s diversity work to help ensure a more diverse nursing workforce, faculty, and leadership. Dr. Quinn also works across AARP to help address public policies that intersect with consumer and nursing issues. She focuses on policy issues related to improving funding for nursing education and legal barriers that prevent all levels of registered nurses from practicing to the full extent of their education and expertise. Her federal policy work includes working on nursing education provisions within the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. She helped to initiate a national-level coalition that successfully moved Medicare to begin supporting graduate-level nursing education. Her state-level policy work entails organizing technical assistance to action coalitions and AARP state offices that are improving funding for nursing education or modernizing the scope of practice laws. Within this role, she places a strong emphasis on building coalitions and engaging stakeholders. She holds a master's in counseling, higher education, and human development from Montclair State University and a PhD in communicati on processes with a focus on health and public policy from Rutgers University School of Communication and Information.

Speaker

Courtney Pitts, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN

Courtney Pitts, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, is a Clinical Professor and Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Specialty Director at the Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. She is a nationally certified and actively practicing FNP with a clinical background in primary care and the management of patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Her experience as a nurse educator includes curricular oversight, clinical training program development and clinical practicum placement. As a former project director of a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) federally funded advanced nursing education workforce grant, Dr. Pitts focused on establishing and maintaining academic practice partnerships required to support nurse practitioner student success in their clinical learning. In 2021, Dr. Pitts was appointed by the United States Secretary of Health to the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP). In this role, she serves with a national cadre of colleagues who focus on nursing workforce, practice, and education issues. Other roles of leadership include service or past service within the National League for Nursing (NLN),  the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), and the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF).
 

Speaker

Courtney Pitts, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN

Courtney Pitts, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, is a Clinical Professor and Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Specialty Director at the Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. She is a nationally certified and actively practicing FNP with a clinical background in primary care and the management of patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Her experience as a nurse educator includes curricular oversight, clinical training program development and clinical practicum placement. As a former project director of a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) federally funded advanced nursing education workforce grant, Dr. Pitts focused on establishing and maintaining academic practice partnerships required to support nurse practitioner student success in their clinical learning. In 2021, Dr. Pitts was appointed by the United States Secretary of Health to the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP). In this role, she serves with a national cadre of colleagues who focus on nursing workforce, practice, and education issues. Other roles of leadership include service or past service within the National League for Nursing (NLN),  the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), and the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF).
 

Speaker

Laura A. Taylor, PhD, CN, CNE, ANEF, FAAN
Founder and CEO, GuIDE to Degree

With more than 26 years in the transplant nursing/community, and 34 years in nursing education, Dr. Taylor has earned national and international recognition as a strong leader who shapes practice, policy and education. Dr. Taylor’s scholarship integrates pioneering technology-based innovations, rigorous scientific methods, inter-professional collaboration, and focused orientation on the advancement of global transplant care and education. Dr. Taylor embodies the innovative and evidence-based approach to contemporary nursing education, practice and healthcare delivery meeting the needs of patients in increasingly complex healthcare environments. 

Dr. Taylor established an educational pathway, The Guiding Initiative for Doctoral Education program (GuIDE ™), a program providing advanced practice nurses informational and problem- solving opportunities regarding PhD, EdD, and DNP education. GuIDE™ is preparing nurses to be competitive for admission to doctoral programs with the goal of increasing the diversity of doctorally prepared nurses.