| Faculty Emeritus, The Ohio State University Dr. Bernadette Melnyk is an inspirational speaker, author, leader, innovator, entrepreneur and globally recognized expert in evidence-based practice, mental health, population health and well-being, intervention research and organizational culture change with over 630 publications, including 11 books, and 36 million dollars of research funding as principal investigator. She is currently CEO and founder of COPE2Thrive, LLC, which disseminates her evidence-based COPE© and MINDBODYSTRONG© programs that improve mental health outcomes in children, teens, young adults and the healthcare workforce, and president and co-founder of EBP Solutions, LLC. As an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Nursing, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, she served as The Ohio State University’s inaugural Vice President for Health Promotion and Chief Wellness Officer for 13 years, and also served as the Dean of both Ohio State’s College of Nursing and Arizona State’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation. In addition, Dr. Melnyk served on the new AHA/ACC blood pressure guideline committee and is the current elected chair of the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. Session Title: Flourish Forward: Evidence-based Strategies for Faculty & Student Well-being and Success |
| Strategic Nursing Advisor for Ascend Learning / ATI Dr. Beth Cusatis Phillips is the Strategic Nursing Advisor and Senior Manager of Content Strategy with ATI and Ascend Learning. Beth is Faculty Emeritus at Duke University School of Nursing. Prior to joining ATI, Beth spent 16 years at Duke as Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Educational Excellence. Beth taught in the ABSN and MSN programs as well as in the School of Medicine’s Biomedical Science MS program. Beth spent 9 years at Vance Granville Community College where she taught in and directed the ADN/LPN programs. Beth’s clinical practice included 13 years at UNC Hospitals and 6 years at East Carolina University Health, first in med-surg and then Surgical/Trauma ICU. Beth received her ADN from Waukesha County Technical Institute; her BSN from East Carolina University; her MSN from Duke; and her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Beth is a member of the International Society for Professional Identity in Nursing. Beth’s educational and research interests include faculty orientation, development, and longevity, curriculum development, professional identity in nursing, student decision making, student support and development, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and innovative teaching strategies. Session Title: The Road to Success for You and Your Students |
 | Founder of Dr. Sellars Educate / Executive Dean at Chamberlain University Dr. Bridgett Byrd Sellars serves as the CEO and Founder of Dr. Sellars Educate. She launched the company in 2021 after supporting Nurse Educators to advance their teaching skills and achieve designation as a Certified Nurse Educator over the past ten years. She is a Certified Nurse Educator by NLN, and also Board Certified as a Nurse Executive and a Fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives. Dr. Sellars has a passion for nursing education and quality patient care. Throughout her 28-years in nursing she has served in several education and leadership roles, including Director and Associate Professor of an RN-BSN Program, and Chief Nursing Officer among many other roles.She is an active member of ANCC, NLN, AACN, NCNA, and ACHE, and serves as Commissioner with the ANCC NCPD Commission on Accreditation. Dr. Sellars completed her Doctorate of Philosophy in Nursing at Research at the University of San Diego in 2012, focusing on Transformational Leadership Practices. She is also a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she completed both her Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and her Master of Science in Nursing (Nursing Education). Session Title: Transforming Nurse Educator Growth and Excellence: Evidence from a Competency-Based Certification Framework |
 | Chief Wellness Officer, CHLA Christine Griffin is the Executive Director and Chief Wellbeing Officer at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. As a nurse for over 20 years, Chris has sought to bring love and care not just for the patients and families but for the care providers as each search for health and wellness. Chris is a board-certified nurse in professional development, matching expertise in adult learning with a passion to heal the healers in healthcare. For the past ten years, Chris has developed a resiliency curriculum, presented at national and international conferences on Caring Science and resiliency, and offered Caring Science & HeartMath workshops with healthcare organizations and hospitals around the country. Chris became a Caritas Coach® in 2010 and a HeartMath trainer in 2011. Now, as a Caritas Coach faculty mentor and master HeartMath Trainer, she hopes to bring theory-guided practices to those working in healthcare so they can have the capacity to flourish as they bring their authentic care and compassion to the bedside. As a Co-Director for the Caritas Leadership Program, Chris has the opportunity to work with healthcare leaders and executives as they re-pattern their authentic selves and learn how to transform their healthcare cultures into safe and healing environments for both patients and staff. Chris received her nursing degree and master of nursing at Regis University and a Ph.D. at the University of Colorado in the Caring Science track. In her Ph.D. program, “Compassion without fatigue,” Chris studied effective compassion fatigue interventions to decrease burnout, mediate secondary trauma and increase compassion satisfaction for healthcare providers. Chris has a passion to help other healthcare providers build a practice of self-care and self-compassion. Through a shared narrative and experiential learning opportunities, she has learned how to decrease the suffering of those who are called to care for others. Chris has contributed to Caring Science and leadership chapters in the textbooks Caritas Coaching: A Journey Toward Transpersonal Caring for Informed Moral Action in Healthcare (2018), Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice, 5th Edition (2020), and Leadership Roles in Promoting a Resilient Workforce (2022).Session Title: Compassion Without Fatigue: The Ripple Effect of Wholeness |
| Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions, USF Dr. Fry-Bowers received her bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Loma Linda University School of Nursing; her master’s degree from the University of Rochester School of Nursing; and her Juris Doctor, summa cum laude, from Whittier Law School, where she was awarded the Dean’s Citation Award for service to the law school community and the public. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA School of Nursing, with an emphasis on health services, where she was awarded a Chancellor’s Fellowship and named a University of California Regents Scholar. Her dissertation research focused on the association of maternal health literacy with structures, processes, and outcomes of care in pediatric populations. She also completed a federally funded post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA in the care of vulnerable populations with a focus on child health policy. She is active regionally and nationally in nursing and health policy organizations. Dr. Fry-Bowers is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN). She has been a Faculty Policy Fellow for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) and is serving her second term on the AACN Health Policy Advisory Council. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board and Co-Editor of the Health Policy Department for the Journal of Pediatric Health Care and serves on the Editorial Board for the journal, Policy, Politics, and Nursing Practice. In addition, she continues in her second term on the Research Committee for the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP). Dr. Fry-Bowers teaches health policy and research courses in the MSN and Ph.D. programs. Her current research and policy interests include improving child and family well-being through social policy; pediatric workforce education and practice issues; and the impact of legislative and regulatory change on the delivery of pediatric health services. Session Title: Legislative Update: What to Watch, Actions to Take |
| Executive Officer, California Board of Registered Nursing Loretta (Lori) Melby RN, MSN, has over 30 years of healthcare experience. Ms. Melby has twenty‐three (23) years as a Registered Nurse with seventeen (17) of those years served in nurse management and leadership roles with an emphasis in consultation and strategic planning for growth. Additionally, she has sixteen (16) years in nursing academia helping to develop and promote over 2,500 students to become the next generation of nurses and healthcare professionals. During this same time, she stayed recent in bedside nursing that included experiences in inpatient, outpatient, ambulatory, and procedural settings. She joined the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN or Board) in 2014 as a Nursing Education Consultant also known as a NEC. In this role she upheld the mission of consumer protection through compliance with nursing education laws and regulations while providing consultative services to the Board and its committees and local, state, and national entities. She was appointed to serve as the Acting Executive Officer (EO) in February 2020 and then the EO in June of the same year. In this role she was essential to the Board, Board staff and the Department of Consumer Affairs when navigating through the COVID‐19 pandemic State of Emergency. She has also been successful in designing and implementing continuous quality improvements efforts to better serve internal and external stakeholders and carrying out the Board’s mission of consumer protection. Ms. Melby is a highly accomplished nursing leader with vast experience in service excellence, staff recruitment and retention, education, clinical operations, and statutory/regulatory affairs. She received honors and awards throughout her career and presented on topics, including but not limited to, Teen Pregnancy, Sexual Assault, and Nursing Regulations. Session Title: Open Discussion with CA BRN Executive |
| Associate Clinical Professor, UCSF Institute for Health and Aging Rosalind de Lisser, PhD, MSN, PMHNP-BC, FNP-BC is a psychiatric and family nurse practitioner, educator, and health services researcher with more than 25 years of experience in integrated mental health, addiction, and primary care. She earned her PhD from Vanderbilt University and her Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Virginia. Dr. de Lisser serves as Lead for Psychiatry and Addiction Treatment in the UCSF Women’s HIV Program, where she provides trauma-informed, integrated behavioral health care to women with complex medical and psychiatric conditions. Her scholarship focuses on geriatric mental health, behavioral health workforce development, and the alignment of practice, education, and policy in California. She leads and collaborates on state- and foundation-funded workforce initiatives examining capacity, training pathways, and competency preparation to meet the needs of an aging population. As former Director of the UCSF Psychiatric–Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program, she led large-scale curricular redesign and expansion efforts that increased access to psychiatric training in public mental health settings. Dr. de Lisser continues to work at the intersection of clinical care, workforce research, and health policy to strengthen mental health systems for older adults and other medically complex populations. Session Title: Aligning Practice, Education, and Policy- Examining Geriatric Mental Health in California through the Lens of Nursing Competency |
