Dr. Jones began her nursing career working in the University of Kentucky Emergency Department, a Level I trauma center. She completed her PhD in Nursing in 2015 with a focus on outcomes associated with use of older stored blood in patients with major trauma. She is certified as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Adult Acute Care, and in Patient Blood Management. Dr. Jones is actively involved in the Stop the Bleed campaign through her connections with the UAB trauma team, and is a certified Stop The...
Prior to pursuing nursing, Dr. Jordan was a Black Belt and Certified Instructor in Taekwondo and had a particular passion for teaching the Tiny Tigers, 4 – 6-year-olds. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Management from UAB and served as the Director of Clinical Trials for a local dermatology practice. After deciding to pursue a career at the bedside, Dr. Jordan completed the Accelerated Masters in Nursing Pathway (AMNP) and earned a Master of Science in Nursing, with a concentratio...
Dr. Lynn Nichols specializes in maternal-child health, and has extensive experience with curriculum development, program evaluation, strategic planning and online instruction. She is committed to the utilization of high-impact practices to foster student engagement. She is interested in leadership development and team building in faculty work groups and facilitating the professional development of faculty. Her topics of interest include: interprofessional collaborative care, BSN roles in primar...
Dr. Talley leads a team of talented faculty for the MSN Program at UAB. Her experience in diabetes and cardiac, thoracic, and vascular surgery yield many opportunities to share with students. Her current endeavors will include teaching, maintaining a practice for diabetes care, and focusing her research on diabetes care, interprofessional teams, and care of the uninsured.
Mrs. Ponder graduated from UAB with her BSN in 1990 and brings more than 20 years critical care nursing experience to the classroom and clinical settings. She earned her Masters in Nursing Education at Samford University in 2009. Mrs. Ponder began her teaching career as a clinical instructor with ADN programs and began teaching full time at UAB in 2009. She still maintains active involvement with bedside nursing by working in the Critical Care Staffing Pool at UAB.
Ashley Hodges, PhD, WHNP-BC, FAANP is a Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Clinical Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Hodges has over 29 years experience in women's health and is recognized nationally for her expertise leadership, curriculum development and evaluation. She is the Curricular Leadership Committee Chair for the National Association of the Nurse Practitioner Faculties. Dr. Hodges maintains faculty practice at the WellHouse, a one-of-a-kind clinic she e...
Brenda W. Iddins is an advanced practice nurse licensed in Alabama and Tennessee. An ANCC certified family nurse practitioner since 1995, she has worked in both urban and rural primary care family practice settings. Prior to 1995 she was ANCC certified as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Medical-Surgical Nursing. Dr. Iddins is co-founder and former chairperson of the Central Alabama Nurse Practitioner Association (CANPA). Her service includes various committees and offices held in both state and n...
Dr. Bryan Combs has been a faculty member at the UAB School of Nursing since 2013 and currently is the Director of the Nurse Practitioner Pathways. He has extensive experience in orthopedics as both a certified athletic trainer as well as a family nurse practitioner. Dr. Combs completed his doctoral work at the UAB School of Nursing in August of 2019. His dissertation focused on musculoskeletal injuries of the shoulder in commercial truck drivers.
Acute Care Nurse Practitioner practices full-time in Orthopedic Surgery
Performing office visits and Registered Nurse First-Assist duties in OR in Acute Orthopedic Trauma Service
Works in Regional Referral Center/Community Hospital in Washington State serving rural/agricultural/recreational and geriatric populations
Proud UAB ulumni
Proud Alumnus of Samford University, Birmingham, AL - Nurse Educator, worked in academic advising, recruiting/marketing, FYI, service learning, Adul...
Dr. Robison, a 2012 graduate of the UAB Schools of Education and Public Health, earned a PhD in Health Education and Promotion. Her area of expertise is in childhood obesity. She has served on numerous committees, including evaluation and outcomes focused work. She is an active member of the State Dept. of Public Health’s Alabama Obesity Task Force. As a Family Nurse Practitioner she has been involved in women’s health, pediatrics and adult care clinics. Her work background includes oncology, h...
Dr. Cindy Selleck’s career has centered on primary care and developing the workforce to meet the needs of our most diverse and underserved populations. She has led 45 grant funded projects to expand the number of health professionals who provide primary care, particularly in rural and inner-city underserved areas. Her deep commitment to diversity, the elimination of health disparities, and care of medically needy populations has led to the creation of innovative interprofessional programs at th...
Dr. Somerall is an innovative distance education faculty member in the family nurse practitioner program where she serves as the specialty tack coordinator. She has strong interests in women's health and providing care for indigent populations. She is active in the national and state nurse practitioner.
Dr. David H. James is a certified Clinical Nurse Specialist. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Master of Science in Nursing; and his Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) from University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing. In addition to his nursing degrees, he has obtained his Master’s in Healthcare Quality & Safety degree from UAB’s School of Health Professionals. He holds certifications related to professional development and quality improvement. He has over twen...
With a strong academic background in applied statistics, data mining, industrial engineering, and research, Dr. Raju has more than six years of statistical and research expertise. With the rapid increase in the amount of data that is being collected, Dr. Raju believes that data mining techniques can effectively extract expedient information. He is particularly interested in using these contemporary statistical data mining and machine learning techniques since they have not been explored in the a...
Dr. Harper is recently retired Dean of the UAB School of Nursing. During her time as dean she also was Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing and served as Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center on International Nursing at UAB, one of ten centers in the United States that focus on nursing education to improve the care for children and families through global outreach. Dr. Harper's scholarly work breaks new ground in joint aca...
Mr. Wiser has been involed in grants and contracts administration in both university and nonprofit settings for 19 years. He is well respected within the School of Nursing and at the instiutional level for his research administration prowess. Mr. Wiser has helped develop a model grant and contract office within the school of nursing's office of research and scholarship to directly support faculty research, education and training, clinical practice, and scholarship endeavors.
Grace Grau is a board certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. She currently holds a dual appointment as faculty at the SON in the Adult Gero Acute Care NP Track and CRNP at UAB Medicine in the department of CVD/Interventional Cardiology.
Originally from Birmingham, AL, Matt attended undergraduate nursing studies in the Mid-Atlantic region where he practiced as an RN taking care of patients recovering from traumatic brain injuries, strokes, and other medical illnesses. He attended graduate school at UAB and worked as the charge nurse in the adult acute inpatient psychiatric unit at UAB hospital. After completing graduate school he worked in geriatrics caring for older adults in skilled nursing facilities before coming to the UA...
Jennan Phillips has more than 35 years experience as a nurse educator, researcher and program director. Her practice focuses on health promotion and injury prevention in underserved populations with particular emphasis on minority workers. Dr. Phillips directs learning experiences in live and distance accessible classrooms and clinical activities in the community primarily with worker populations. She regularly supervises interdisciplinary field experiences for students in the Deep South Occupat...
Dr. Frank's efforts are divided between her positions as Grants Development Specialist for the School's Office of Research and Scholarship and Project Manager for the NEPQR HRSA award, “Interprofessional Collaborative Practice at the PATH Clinic”. In the ORS, Dr Frank offers assistance with grant writing and manuscript preparation to faculty. She has research/scholarly interests in cognitive symptoms in breast cancer survivors and in management of Type 1 Diabetes in emerging adults with no insur...
Working in the UAB School of Nursing Simulation Lab Ms. Dailey is involved in the development and facilitation of simulation in undergraduate and graduate nursing courses and health disciplines in the UAB School of Health Professions. She has also been involved with the facilitation of interprofessional simulations involving the UAB School of Nursing and the UAB School of Medicine. She also works with visiting students and their families, as well as, visiting professors to tour and introduce the...
Dr. Weaver's primary experience as an RN is in critical care working in Surgical, Medical, and Trauma and Burn intensive care units. Additionally, she is certified through the American Nurse Credentialing Center (ANCC) as an Adult Acute Care Nurse Practitioner and has worked as a nurse practitioner on hospitalist, orthopedic, and diabetes services. Currently, she holds a Faculty Practice at the UAB Providing Access to Healthcare (PATH) Clinic.
Leah Pickett is a Board Certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with clinical experience in mood disorders, anxiety, psychotic disorders, and abuse/trauma. She most recently held a clinical practice at the CPM Adult Outpatient Clinic and worked with the Office of Psychiatric Research, both at UAB. She now serves as Co-Director for the Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Residency through the Veteran's Affairs Nursing Academic Partnership, a funded program between the Birmingham VA M...
Dr. Lynda Wilson is fluent in Spanish, has led study-abroad courses to Guatemala, and received Fulbright support for work in Chile, Malawi, and Zambia. Her research has focused on preterm infants, Latino immigrant families, global nursing education programs, and identifying global health competencies. From 2009-2012 Dr. Wilson received funding from the National Institutes of Health to develop, implement, and evaluate four distance education courses for 166 study coordinators at international sit...
Dr. Lynn Nichols specializes in maternal-child health, and has extensive experience with curriculum development, program evaluation, strategic planning and online instruction. She is committed to the utilization of high-impact practices to foster student engagement. She is interested in leadership development and team building in faculty work groups and facilitating the professional development of faculty. Her topics of interest include: interprofessional collaborative care, BSN roles in primar...
Dr. Daniel specializes in psychiatric nursing and nursing administration. Her areas of interest include schizophrenia, personality disorders, and evidence based practice. She is involved in classroom and distance accessible education in multiple nursing programs at the university.
Dr. Moore seeks to improve knowledge dissemination to nursing students on Veterans’ related health issues. The special population group of Veterans and their family members has certain conditions, which while not unique to Veterans, do occur with increased frequency. Special conditions include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; recognition and treatment), mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), women Veterans, environmental exposures, palliative care for Veterans, homelessness, and Veteran suicid...
Dr. Rhonda McLain is an experienced educator with expertise in the areas of teaching-learning strategies, curriculum development and program evaluation. Having taught more than 20 years in undergraduate education, Dr. McLain has led the development of innovative nursing curricula designed to prepare new nurses in meeting client needs in an ever-changing health care environment. As an educator in the classroom, Dr. McLain has been recognized by her students for her creative teaching strategies th...
S. Dawn Bulgarella, MSHA, CPA, is the Senior Associate Dean for Administration and Finance. In this role Ms. Bulgarella is chief fiscal and operating officer of the medical school. Her administrative functions encompass space planning, fiscal affairs and human resource management on a state budget of $100 million and a research budget of approximately $274 million.
Ms. Bulgarella received her undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama in 1986 and was licensed as a Certified Pub...
As a nurse with more than 40 years experience, Ms. Hamilton has had the privilege of watching the profession change in exciting and positive ways. She has worked in several fields in nursing, including critical care nursing, staff development, as a nursing supervisor, director of nursing, home health care, Adult Down syndrome clinic supervisor, school nurse and, in her current position as Instructor in the UAB School of Nursing. She has enjoyed each position and strives to share that passion wit...
Stephen L. Howell, DNP, ANP-BC, ACHPN began his nursing career in 1999 working in a dual diagnosis unit for adults with psychiatric illnesses and chemical dependencies. He was then accepted into the United States Peace Corps where he served in Mongolia from 2001-2003 as a healthcare specialist. During his Peace Corps service, he developed a continuing education course with grant funding for Mongolian nurses, taught health-based English, and lectured on preventative health issues to adolescents.<...
Beginning in 2020, my professional efforts have focused on decreasing the impact of trauma on the lives of nurses and U.S. Veterans due to the mass trauma of COVID-19. In 2020, I undertook training to become certified in the Community Resilience Model™, an evidenced-based approach in addressing primary and secondary trauma in the lives of frontline health care providers. Before 2020, I had focused on educating and increasing the psychiatric nurse practitioner workforce, especially as pertaining...
Dr. Iyer is a pulmonary-critical physician and geriatrics-palliative care researcher in the UAB Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine. He is UAB's first recipient of the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging (K76) and works to integrate geriatrics and palliative care for people living with serious respiratory illnesses and their care partners. He is the founder of @pallipulm and @geripulm and works to bridge the fields of pulmonary medicine, pall...
Dawn Taylor Peterson is an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine, Department of Medical Education and in the School of Health Professions, Department of Health Services Administration. She holds a PhD in Instructional Design, as well as an Educational Specialist degree and a Master of Arts in Education. She completed her initial simulation training and the Advanced Comprehensive Instructor Course at the Center for Medical Simulation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Peterson is also a Te...
(Ph.D. – UAB; MPH – South Carolina; BS – Cornell School of Hotel Administration) Since 2017, Eric has been a Professor in the School of Public Health with a joint appointment in the Collat School of Business. Prior to that, he served as the Associate Chair and MHA Program Director in the Health Policy and Management Department in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Earlier positions include serving as the Forsyth Medical Center Distinguished Professor of Healthcare...
Haiyan Qu, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration in the UAB School of Health Professions. Dr. Qu has taught quantitative research methods in M.S. in Health Administration Program for 12 years, and quantitative methods in M.S. in Health Informatics Program for six years.
She has been an investigator and methodologist for 29 research projects. Her research interests focus on health disparities. She has published articles in Journal of Genera...
Dr. Jared White completed his general surgery training and his abdominal transplant and hepatobiliary fellowship at the University of Alabama Birmingham in 2013. Dr. White was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery where he specializes in all aspects of evaluating, managing, and treating patients with end stage liver disease from a transplant surgery standpoint, including management of complications of cirrhosis, management of immunosuppression, and optimization of medical ...
Katherine A. Meese, Ph.D is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She also serves as the Director of Wellness Research in the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness. She earned her Ph.D in Health Services Administration with a specialization in health care strategic management from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2019. Dr. Meese has several years of industry experience which encompassed work in ten countries on...
Kathleen Pridgen is originally from Kingsport, Tennessee, and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Tennessee. She completed her medical degree at the University of Virginia and stayed in Charlottesville at UVA for Family Medicine Residency. Beginning in medical school, she enjoyed the variety, breadth and depth of primary care, as well as longitudinal relationships with patients, and this is what led her to the field of Family Medicine. During her third year of residency, she...
Dr. Mugavero's HIV research program includes observational/cohort studies, behavioral interventions, and implementation science studies anchored to a status neutral care continuum, with particular emphasis on care engagement. Dr. Mugavero serves as Director for the Center for Outcomes Effectiveness Research and Education (COERE), Co-Director of the Center For AIDS Research, and PI of an AHRQ T32 training grant in health services and outcomes research. As Director of the COERE, he works with an i...
Michelle Brown, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration. Michelle leads the Healthcare Simulation Master's degree program as the founding program director. She teaches simulation design, advanced debriefing, patient safety, effective communication, and teamwork. Michelle is the recipient of the President's award for Excellence in Teaching and the Graduate Dean's award for Excellence in Mentorship, the highest honor conferred by the Graduate School. ...
Nancy Borkowski, DBA, CPA, FACHE, FHFMA is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She received her DBA with specializations in health services administration and accounting from Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Borkowski has over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry and is a two-time past recipient of the American College of Healthcare Executive’s (ACHE) Southern Florida Senior Career Healthcare Exec...
Nancy E. Dunlap, MD, PhD, MBA, completed her medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine in1981. She received an A.B. in Biology from Wellesley College in 1977, a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1991, and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in 2008. She has practiced medicine in the field of pulmonary critical care for over 25 years and held executive positions in two academic medical centers, most recently as Dea...
Rodney O. Tucker, MD, MMM, FAAHPM, was born in Gadsden, Alabama and attended Litchfield High School graduating in 1980. He then attended UAB and received his undergraduate degree in Biology with a minor in Chemistry and Social Work in 1984. After a year of graduate work at UAB, he entered the University of Alabama School of Medicine and graduated in 1989. Dr. Tucker served an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Carraway Methodist Medical Center from 1989-1992 and then served as Chie...
Ronit Elk, PhD has recently joined the University of Alabama, Birmingham as Professor in the School of Medicine; Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care, and as Associate Director of the Southeast Institute for Innovation in Palliative and Supportive Care. Her prior position was at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Using Community Based Participatory Research, her NIH-funded research focuses on partnering with underserved populations, in particular rural African America...
Dr. Perna is the lead physician for Aspire Health in the greater Birmingham area. He also serves as the Medical Director of the Pediatric Palliative Care Team at Children’s of Alabama. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine the University of Alabama – Birmingham with secondary academic appointments in Nursing and Pediatrics. Dr. Perna is a graduate of Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. He is board certified in both Family Practice and Hospice & Palliative Medicine.
