Kate Gawlik is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Nursing and serves as the Director of Undergraduate Health and Wellness Academic Programming and the Co-Director the Health and Wellness Innovation in Healthcare program at The Ohio State University. She is certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a family nurse practitioner and has experience in family practice, urgent care, and reproductive care with clinical interests in population health, preventive medicine, wellness, health professionals’ education, and cardiovascular disease prevention. She has also served as the Project Manager for the Million Hearts® initiatives at The Ohio State’s College of Nursing since 2013. Kate was awarded the 2018 Nurse Practitioner State Award for Excellence and was inducted as a Fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners’ the same year.

Bernadette Melnyk is Vice President for Health Promotion, University Chief Wellness Officer, Helene Fuld Health Trust Professor of Evidence-Based Practice and Dean of the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University (OSU), Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at OSU’s College of Medicine, and Executive Director of the Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for EBP. She is a pediatric and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, an entrepreneur, and is nationally/internationally recognized as a leader, innovator and expert in EBP, intervention research, child and adolescent mental health, and health and wellness. Her funding includes over 33 million from federal agencies and foundations as a PI. Dr. Melnyk has edited seven books and has over 430 publications. She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the National Academies of Practice, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Dr. Melnyk serves as editor of the journal Worldviews on Evidence-based Nursing. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Promoting Emotional Well-Being and Resilience Expert Panel, is an invited member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-being and Resilience and is a board member of the National Forum for Heart Disease & Stroke Prevention.

Dr. Melnyk founded the National Interprofessional Education and Practice Collaborative to advance DHHS’s Million Hearts® initiative, which has over 150 participating organizations and universities. She founded the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities, a collaborative organization to improve population health in the nation’s institutions of higher learning, and serves as its current president.

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.

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.

As Government Affairs and Policy Assistant for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), Emily assists in policy and legislative initiatives pertaining to health policy and higher education issues that impact nursing schools. Prior to AACN, Emily was a United States Senate staffer, and focused on health care strategies and policy in fellowships with think tank and lobbying organizations.

Emily earned dual BA degrees in Public Relations and Policy with a focus on Economic Systems from Drake University.

Before joining the faculty at Indiana University School of Nursing in 1993, Dr. DeMeester’s clinical experience was in the areas of critical care and cardiac rehabilitation nursing. She earned her BSN and MSN degrees from Indiana University and her PhD from UNLV. She currently holds an academic appointment as a Clinical Associate Professor of Nursing. She has served as an academic leader in the roles of Associate Dean of Pre-Licensure Programs (2013-2018) and Interim Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs (2018-2020). She is a Certified Nurse Educator (CNE) and teaches courses in both the undergraduate and PhD programs. She previously co-chaired the IU Practice-Education-Partnership (PEP) operations subcommittee and worked with nursing leaders from eight area hospitals to implement a precepted PEP clinical model designed to deepen the clinical learning and practice preparation of undergraduate students. She currently teaches a Nursing Synthesis course in which she supports the learning of senior students in their final semester who are preparing to transition to RN practice. Her educational research has focused on the clinical education of pre-licensure nursing students. She has been involved in studies of the perceptions of students engaged in interprofessional clinical learning and faculty members, preceptors, and/or students in various clinical learning environments including traditional faculty-supervised instruction, preceptorships, dedicated education units (DEUs), and hybrid models of clinical education. Dr. DeMeester is interested in curriculum development, program evaluation and the preparation of future faculty. She has expertise in examination mapping, item-writing, and exam/item analysis.

CAPT Tarsha Cavanaugh is Chief of the Nurse Corps Scholarship Branch where she oversees $27 million in Federal funds to award scholarships annually to over 200 students accepted or enrolled in a nursing degree program at an accredited school of nursing located throughout the United States. She also manages the Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program portfolio totaling $1.4 million in Federal funds specifically geared to students pursuing degrees in 20 health and allied health professions to deliver quality, culturally competent health services to Native Hawaiians throughout the State of Hawai’i. In addition to her Branch Chief duties, she also co-leads BHW’s Grantee Engagement Plan (GEP), a strategic public health initiative aimed at strengthening academic, clinical, and community-based partnerships.

CAPT has previously worked in the HRSA, HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB), Division of Policy and Data as a Senior Public Health Analyst, providing advisement on programmatic policies and regulations germane to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP). Prior to joining HAB, CAPT Cavanaugh was assigned to the HRSA Office of Women’s Health, as a women’s health advisor and subject matter expert on Departmental and Agency-wide policy and programmatic initiatives. In this capacity, she led the implementation of three high priority areas in OWH’s strategic plan, violence prevention/home visiting domestic violence benchmark, and trauma-informed care, as well as, stakeholder engagement activities. CAPT Cavanaugh has over 22 years of public health experience working in adolescent health, youth suicide prevention, mental health, health workforce, women’s health and HIV/AIDS policy.

Dr. Toni Eason, is the Director of the Division of Health Careers and Financial Support and joined the Bureau of Health Workforce in October 2020 from the Department of Labor where she served as a Branch Chief in the Medical Benefits Adjudication program. She is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse who brings a wide range of experience in health workforce development best practices with a focus on rural health, immigration health, minority health and health literacy. Dr. Eason has spent the majority of her career dedicated to health workforce development best practices, business process re-engineering and the optimization of fiscal operations. She has more than 20 years’ experience in the healthcare space, with expertise focused on rural health, immigration health, minority health, and health literacy. Dr. Eason is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse, who received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Howard University and dual Master of Science degrees from the University of Maryland in both Public/Community Health Nursing and Health Policy; a Doctorate in Nursing Practice from Rush University was granted, with a focus on Leadership and the Business of HealthCare and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Nursing Informatics from Walden University. Dr. Eason is also a Fellow of the American Association of Occupation Health Nurses.

Captain Sophia L. Russell, D.M., M.B.A., R.N., NE-BC, SHRM-SCP, a member of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, is the Director of the Division of Nursing and Public Health at the Health Resources and Services Administration in the Bureau of Health Workforce, where she is responsible for the strategic guidance for a $319M/year portfolio of programs spanning more than 800 federal awards (FY20) in nursing, public health, and behavioral health. In this capacity, Captain Russell serves as principal advisor on strategies and decisions regarding national policy with regard to support of nursing practice and education, and behavioral and public health programs.

Captain Russell holds a Doctorate of Management degree in organizational leadership from the University of Phoenix and received a Master of Business Administration (with a concentration in corporate finance) from John Hopkins University. She is a graduate of Norfolk State University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and holds a post-graduate certificate in Global Health from the University of Maryland. She is board certified as a Nurse Executive by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Captain Russell has spent the vast majority of her nursing career working in the field of nursing administration and workforce development and management. She began her nursing career through the Army’s Specialized Training for Army Readiness (STAR) program. Over the course of her nursing career, some of her assignments include tours of duty at the Office of the Unites States Surgeon General, Division of Commissioned Corps Personnel and Readiness; on staff at the Defense Health Agency and TRICARE Management Activity; on staff at the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute; and as a staff nurse with the Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons.