International Awards for Nursing Excellence Recipients

Jennifer L. Pettis, MS, RN, CNE

Director of Strategic Alliances 
Gerontological Society of America
Washington, DC, USA

Jennifer Pettis, MS, RN, CNE is the Director of Strategic Alliances at the Gerontological Society of America (GSA). At GSA, Ms. Pettis directs the development and production of strategic alliance programs to further the Society’s mission and strategic goals. Her responsibilities include providing thought leadership to drive growth and new opportunities involving existing or potential new partners for the Strategic Alliances Division of the Society; developing and managing key relationships and alliances; and representing the Society at strategic partner meetings, professional conferences, and meetings with stakeholders.

Previously the Acting Director of Programs at Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) at the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing, Ms. Pettis oversaw the NICHE curriculum and programming. Her responsibilities at NICHE also included expanding academic offerings, engaging current member organizations, seeking new relationships to expand the overall program, and serving as the NICHE Conference Chair. Prior to joining NICHE, Ms. Pettis was a nurse researcher at Abt Associates where she participated in data collection, analysis, and reporting of healthcare payment, quality improvement, and quality reporting initiatives and provided technical assistance and training through a variety of post-acute care projects. She has extensive clinical, managerial, consulting, and training experience, including as a consultant to the Division of Nursing Homes (DNH) at Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). While with the CMS, she provided the DNH with subject matter expertise regarding the Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) and a variety of clinical and quality issues.

Ms. Pettis provides subject matter expertise to CMS and the Rainmakers Strategic Solutions team supporting their work with CMS under the Minimum Data Set (MDS)/RAI User’s Manual Support and Maintenance and Post-Acute Care Training contracts. She is member of the Alzheimer’s Association of Northeastern New York Board of Directors and an active community educator for the Alzheimer’s Association as well as a volunteer lead trainer for AARP’s Disrupt Aging Classroom program. In 2020, Ms. Pettis was recognized by the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence as a Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing, and, in 2021, she received Sigma’s Amy J. Berman Geriatric Nursing Leadership Award, an international award bestowed upon an individual who has demonstrated contributions to collaborative practice through involvement in interprofessional teams and defined commitment to gerontological nursing.

Alexandra Hughes, BSN, RN

Emergency Department Clinical Nurse
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Chicago, Illinois, USA Psi Lambda Chapter

Ms. Hughes joined Sigma through Psi Lambda Chapter at Oak Point University, and quickly held a leadership position as Program Chair partnering with Meals on Wheels Chicago and Red Cross Illinois. She conducted several research projects on COVID-19 Bilateral Lung Transplant Nursing Management and Complications, Children’s Autonomy in Medical Decision Making, and Improving Communication Through Family-Centered Care. She is also affiliated with ANA, ENA, and Student Nurses Association of Illinois as an RN Special Executive Consultant.

Nu Nu Chapter

Weber State University
Ogden, Utah, USA

Nu Nu Chapter is committed to providing leadership, education, community, service, recruitment, and retention to all members. The chapter boasts high acceptance rates, great strategies for engagement and retention, and extensive volunteerism that increased public visibility and awareness. The chapter offers mentorship and social activities to student interns, who are given opportunities to suggest and execute service project ideas. Nu Nu Chapter provides multiple volunteer opportunities to engage its members, including an annual Christmas community event where the members donate unwrapped gifts to underprivileged families. Members also recorded a children’s book via video and audio for children who fell behind in school during the pandemic.

Elizabeth Anne Rosser, DPhil, MN, RN, RM, DipN Ed, Dip RM, RNT, PFHEA

Professor Emeritus
Bournemouth University
Bournemouth, England, United Kingdom

Elizabeth is one of the UK's and Europe's excellent and impactful nurse leaders who has made an exceptional, transformational, and sustained contribution to Sigma's visions and goals through her extensive range of leadership roles both nationally and globally. Elizabeth is an impressive, credible leader in scholarship, education and research all linked to nursing practice, education, and policy. Elizabeth has been a prominent advocate of nursing within the Higher Education Sector and has with considerable energy argued for the vision that in nursing will only advance with the close integration of practice, education, research, and high academic and practice standards. She has been a tenacious and strong advocate of staff development opportunities and, through innovative approaches, is committed to supporting the next generation nurse leaders. Through formally establishing Sigma in England, she has transformed the landscape in which nurses can network, collaborate, and engage globally.

Beverly S. Reigle, PhD, RN, FARN

Associate Professor Emerita
University of Cincinnati College of Nursing
West Chester, Ohio, USA

Dr. Reigle served as Sigma International Secretary as well as Regional Coordinator for Regions 4 and 9. She currently serves as the President-Elect of the Beta Iota Chapter, for the third time. As Regional Coordinator, she was instrumental in the development of the Southern Ohio/Northern Kentucky consortium. Dr. Reigle has mentored new members and those transitioning to new roles. She is devoted to international, regional, and local involvement and increasing nurses’ scholarship, leadership, and learning activities.

Suzanne Bakken, PhD, RN, FAAN

Alumni Professor of the School of Nursing
Columbia University
New York, USA

Suzanne Bakken is the Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. Following doctoral study in nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, she completed a National Library of Medicine postdoctoral fellowship in Medical Informatics at Stanford University. The goal of Dr. Bakken’s program of research is to promote health and reduce health disparities in underserved populations through application of innovative informatics methods. A major focus of her current grant portfolio is visualization of healthcare data for community members, patients, clinicians, and community-based organizations including the creation of a visualization toolbox to address COVID-19 testing and vaccine uptake. Dr. Bakken currently directs the Precision in Symptom Self-Management Center and the Reducing Health Disparities Through Informatics (RHeaDI) predoctoral and postdoctoral training program; both funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR). She also served as Principal Investigator of the AHRQ-funded Washington Heights Inwood Informatics Infrastructure for Comparative Effectiveness Research (WICER) and its follow-up study, WICER 4 U, which is focused on promoting the use of WICER infrastructure through stakeholder engagement. She has also received funding from the National Cancer Institute, National Library of Medicine, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. Dr. Bakken has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers. In 2010, she received the Pathfinder Award from the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research. In 2019, she received the Francois Gremy Award from the International Medical Informatics Association. She is an elected fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Nursing, American College of Medical Informatics, and a member of the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine).

Leslie Parker, PhD, APRN, NNP-BC, FAAN

Professor
University of Florida College of Nursing
Gainesville, Florida, USA

Dr. Leslie Parker directs one of the few research programs dedicated to developing strategies to improve the nutritional health of premature infants. Her research focuses on optimal nutrition delivery and increasing infant consumption of breast milk. She has developed strategies that health care providers integrate into daily practice improving health outcomes of the most vulnerable patients. Hospitals around the world have adapted protocols based on her team’s research, which directly improves care and decreases clinician workload, cost of care, and risk of complications. She is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of multidisciplinary scholars, which will have a long-lasting impact on global health for infants and families.

Laurie Kennedy-Malone, PhD GNP-BC FAANP, FGSA

Professor of Nursing
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Dr. Laurie Kennedy-Malone is a professor of nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has been a nurse educator for 31 years and has taught nurse practitioner students and RN and BSN students. Dr. Kennedy-Malone was the project director of the HRSA Advanced Nursing Education Workforce grant in which technology was used to develop the clinical video simulations that are highlighted in the award application. She has held leadership board positions with the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association and the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties. She is the author of Advanced Practice Nursing in the Care of Older Adults. Laurie is a member of the Gamma Zeta Chapter, having served as its president in the past. She has served as a mentor for both the Chiron program and the Faculty Leadership Mentoring Program. Laurie is currently serving as a member of the Sigma Foundation Renewable Gifts Committee.

Reynaldo R. Rivera, DNP, MA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

Director of Nursing Research and Innovation
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
New York, USA

Dr. Reynaldo R. Rivera, an innovative nurse leader, has implemented and led many practice changes with creativity and commitment to advancing patient care. He established a Professional Practice Model, engaging nurses throughout the NYP to develop a shared vision for nursing practice at all levels and settings. Dr. Rivera launched joint faculty appointments and an Academic Research Fellowship Program with Columbia Nursing, thus increasing the research capabilities of NYP. He implemented the PEACE Model, an EBP framework developed by clinical nurses. He led the book's preparation, The PEACE Model Evidence-Based Practice Guide for Clinical Nurses, so clinicians globally have access to detailed practice knowledge. The model has been translated into a deep dive intensive workshop, increasing nurses' knowledge of translating evidence into practice and improving family-centered care. These initiatives have resulted in significant nurse-led studies, publications, and practice changes.

Pulmonary Integrated Care Committee

Atlantic Health System
Morristown, New Jersey, USA

The Pulmonary Integrated Care Committee at Atlantic Health System implemented a nurse-driven pulmonary initiative developed by Moira Kendra that focuses on optimizing care in five areas: consults, inpatient interventions, education, transitions of care, and post discharge care in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD. This interdisciplinary committee oversees interventions that include a pulmonary and dietary consult, early mobility, screening for depression, anxiety, and lung cancer, COPD education, smoking cessation, discharge medications, follow-up appointments and a COPD Action Plan with discharge referrals. These have yielded significant reductions in COPD readmission rates.

Lisa M. Thompson, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, MS, FAAN

Professor
Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Dr. Lisa M. Thompson is a tenured Professor in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University. The focus of her research is to evaluate effective behavioral change interventions to reduce maternal and infant exposures to household air pollution from solid cooking fuels using implementation research. For the past 20 years, Dr. Thompson has worked on intervention trials related to household air pollution, starting as a graduate student on a landmark study, the first randomized stove intervention study on infant pneumonia in Guatemala. Dr. Thompson is a co-Investigator on the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network, or HAPIN, stove intervention trial. She is also the principal investigator of a cluster randomized trial in rural Guatemala, an implementation science study to develop and evaluate community-level interventions that aim to reduce household burning of plastic waste. In 2021, she was inducted into the Sigma International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame.

Martine Puts, PhD, RN

Associate Professor
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Martine Puts is an Associate professor at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on improving care for older adults with cancer and older adults living with frailty.

Lynn Kemp, PhD, MBus, BHSc, RN

Distinguished Professor
Western Sydney University
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Distinguished Professor Lynn Kemp is Director of the Translational Research and Social Innovation group in the School of Nursing and Midwifery Western Sydney University and Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research. Driven by the mission that no child should have their potential limited by the circumstances into which they are born and live, Lynn has developed a significant program of community-based child health research that includes world-first intervention studies such as the Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home-visiting (MECSH) study, the first randomized trial of sustained nurse home visiting that is embedded in universal health services, the subsequent right@home trial, and primary health care innovations to improve outcomes for children and young people living with adversity. She now leads an international program of translational research, studying the implementation of these effective interventions at population scale in Australia, England, South Korea, and the USA.

Dion Candelaria, PhD, RN, MN (ClinTeach), GradCertN (Cardovasc)
Patient-Focused Outcomes from Cardiac Rehabilitation: Influence of Service Delivery Characteristics

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery
The University of Sydney
Wolli Creek, New South Wales, Australia

Dr. Dion Candelaria specializes in cardiovascular nursing. His research focuses on supporting patients with heart disease to reduce their risk of further cardiovascular events through promoting secondary prevention behaviors and cardiac rehabilitation. His doctoral work evaluated the influence of service delivery on patient-focused outcomes in cardiac rehabilitation. His goal is to improve the quality of cardiac rehabilitation delivery in Australia and globally so that more patients with heart disease complete cardiac rehabilitation and maximize its benefits. Dr. Candelaria is a passionate educator committed to supporting undergraduate nursing students and is a strong advocate for fellow early-career nurse researchers.

Jennifer R. Timm, DNP, RN, PHN

Associate Professor
Winona State University
Minnesota, USA

Dr. Jennifer Timm is an Associate Professor of Nursing in the Department of Graduate Nursing at Winona State University, located in the beautiful region of Winona and Rochester in southeastern Minnesota. Dr. Timm has served as a board member in a variety of roles within the Kappa Mu Chapter since 2014 and is the incoming President. The Kappa Mu chapter is dedicated to supporting and enriching the practice and wellness of members and regional nurses. Dr. Timm has rich experience in academic, public and community health, and administration, management, and leadership in nursing. Having been involved in leading numerous interprofessional models, Dr. Timm is passionate about interprofessional education, practice, community models of health, and care for underserved groups. She pioneered the design and implementation of a novel interprofessional triage model in an outpatient mental health and substance use clinic and a national award-winning interprofessional clinical education model.

Acute Nurse Practitioner
St. Francis Medical Center & One Health Medical Clinic
Los Angeles, California, USA

Dr. James Q. Simmons continues to emerge as one of the most sought-after voices at the intersection of the LGBTQ+ and Black communities because of his uncanny ability to distill the complex and complicated into consumable content. He is the brains and heart behind the vibrant online community Ask The NP! and has been seen and heard on network television, Sirius XM, Loveline, countless podcasts, and much more. His combination of extensive multimedia experience and 13 years of hospital-based critical care practice make him one of the most innovative voices changing the way we talk about healthcare today. Dr. Simmons holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications from Drake University, a Master of Science in Nursing from University of Illinois-Chicago, and a DNP from UCLA, where he is a frequent guest lecturer and research consultant.