Speakers

Pamela Cone
Professor Emerita, US Fulbright Scholar
Graduate & Doctoral Nursing Programs, School of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University

Pamela Cone, born and raised in Haiti, has been a nurse for 50 years, a nurse educator for 34 years, and a nurse researcher for 31 years. She holds a BSN from Alderson-Broaddus College, an MSN from Azusa Pacific University, and a PhD in nursing from the University of California San Francisco. In 2008-2009, she was awarded a US Fulbright grant to Norway. Since then, she has collaborated with Norwegian nurse researcher Tove Giske to develop several grounded theories, presented their research in over 30 countries, written over a dozen journal articles, and published two books on their spiritual care work.

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.

Speakers

Christy Haas-Howard, MPH, BSN, BA, RN, AE-C, NCSN
Program Director, Health
National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF)

Christy Haas-Howard oversees the development, execution, and evaluation of health initiatives related to the environment. She collaborates with the conservation and K-12 education teams to identify priority areas of common interest to maximize resources and impact. As an experienced health care provider, she tracks emerging trends in the health and environment space, recognizing and amplifying the opportunities to create greater health equity and environmental justice. Christy comes to NEEF with over 17 years as a registered nurse in the school setting. She has been asthma educator-certified since 2009 and has led various school-based asthma programs at the local and stat e level. She has also worked at the national level to cultivate an increase in school nurse’s knowledge and skills related to asthma care. Christy has presented and published on asthma and the upstream benefits of addressing environmental exposures and climate change. Her other previous projects include supporting a pilot air quality sensor network and health literacy project in Denver, CO, and implementing an air quality and asthma literacy Environmental Health Nurse Fellowship. Christy holds a BA in Economics from Claremont McKenna College, a BS in Nursing from Metropolitan State University, Denver, and a MPH from the Colorado School of Public Health. She enjoys gardening, playing games with her family, walking her dogs, and hiking in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

Speakers

Andrea Novak, PhD, MSN, RN, NPD-BC, FAEN
Field Experience Coordinator/Adjunct Faculty
Aspen University

Dr. Andrea Novak is currently the Field Experience Coordinator and Adjunct Faculty for Aspen University. Her history in adult education spans over 30 years with most recently serving as an AHEC Nurse for about 23 years. Dr. Novak is a member of the NCNA Council on Gerontology and serves as a peer reviewer for NCNA’s CEAU Task Force as well as a Peer Reviewer for the Emergency Nurses Association Education Committee.

Her nursing background began as many of us did as a med-surg nurse which expanded to working in the emergency nursing arena and later as a nurse educator for a high-volume emergency department. Andrea is one of the North Carolina’s 100 Great Nurses, as well as a Fellow in the Academy of Emerg ency Nursing. She has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Emergency Nursing, the National AHEC Organization and currently on the Aspen Journal. A published author and national speaker, Dr. Novak also received training as a health literacy consultant through UNC Chapel Hill and developed a strong interest in both helping healthcare providers meet the literacy needs of their patients, especially those most vulnerable; the elderly. Dr. Novak holds a PhD in Public Health; community health and education from Walden University, two Masters Degrees, two bachelor degrees, and an ADN.