Yolanda Ogbolu, Ph.D., CRNP-Neonatal, FNAP, FAAN, is the Bill and Joanne Conway Dean and Professor at University of Maryland Baltimore School of Nursing. Over the past 13 years she has served in administrative leadership at UMB, including as Chair of Partnerships, Professional Education and Practice and past Director of Global Health. She also co-directed the Center for Health Equity and Outcomes Research and the Global Learning to Advance Health Equity Network.
Ogbolu came to academia after over 20 years of experience as a neonatal nurse practitioner. Since joining UMB in 2010, her interprofessional and community engaged research and scholarship has focused on advancing health equity and nurse capacity locally and globally. Projects center on strengthening nurses’ capacity to impact global health, improving the provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate care in rural and urban hospitals, and addressing social isolation and social determinants of health in marginalized communities. She has garnered over $12 million in funding, as PI and Co-I, from a diverse group of state and federal agencies, and foundations.
She has served nationally working on projects with the American Association of Nursing, National Quality Forum, National League of Nursing, and the Surgeon General’s Office. She has consulted internationally with the World Health Organization. She is an elected fellow of the National Academies of Practice and the American Academy of Nursing, and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar.
Dr. Laura Herrera Scott is a healthcare leader with expertise across decades in integrating value-based care philosophy with clinical and population health strategies. She is a visionary leader in the health space, spearheading the creation of progressive programs that optimize patient outcomes, improve the quality of care, and advance health equity. Most recently, Dr. Scott served as Executive Vice President of Population Health at Summit Health and as Vice President of Clinical Strategy and Product at Anthem. She also brings MDH experience, serving in the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from 2011-2015 as Deputy Secretary of Public Health Services.
Dr. Scott is a Veteran of the United States Army Reserves, serving from 1998-2008 as a Major in the Medical Corps. She received a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and a Doctor of Medicine from SUNY Health Science Center in Brooklyn, New York. She lives in Towson, Maryland, with her husband and two children.
Dr. Michael Bleich is a Wisconsin native who has held clinical, consultative, service, academic, and association leadership positions. Dr. Bleich, a recognized scholar and thought leader, addresses national and international audiences, including nurses, executives, governance bodies, associations, and the media. Four contributions are significant to the advancement of the discipline – his engagement as one of the five nurses on the committee that wrote the original seminal report, The Future of Nursing, Leading Change, Advancing Health, issued through the Institute of Medicine, Wisdom at Work: the Importance of the Older and Experienced Nurse in the Workplace published through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Men in Nursing: Understanding the Challenges Men Face in this Predominantly Female Profession, and Analysis of the Nursing Workforce Crisis: a Call to Action, both published in the American Journal of Nursing.
Dr. Bleich has a diploma, BSN, MPH, and Ph.D. from Midwestern Schools. He completed Fellowships with the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows Program, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the WK Kellogg Foundation. An inductee of the American Academy of Nursing and the National Academies of Practice, he proudly served as the President of CGFNS, International, and FNINR, both advancing science and ensuring workforce mobility, quality, and safety.
Dr. Zipp is the Executive Director for the Maryland Organization of Nurse Leaders, Inc./Maryland Nurse Residency Collaborative. Zipp joined the MNRC team in June 2018 as Nurse Residency Program (NRP) Coordinator and alongside her predecessor, Dr. Joan Warren, helped Maryland become the first in the nation to have all acute care hospitals using a standardized NRP. With more than 23 years of experience, Zipp has demonstrated leadership and expertise in critical care nursing, evidence-based practice (EBP), leadership and transition, mentorship, and preceptor programs. Having served as full-time faculty at the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON), NRP Director at Lifebridge Health, and as a Professional Development Specialist for EBP & Research at Medstar Health, she brings a broad and unique perspective to her role. Dr. Zipp is published in NRP and EBP subject matter, built a statewide preceptor program and created a transition to NRP toolkit that is now distributed nationwide. Dr. Zipp is a three-time UMSON graduate, receiving her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2000, her Master of Science in Health Services, Leadership and Management in 2012, and her Doctor of Nursing Practice in 2018. Her doctoral degree work focused on the development of resident mentorship programs.
Susan Corbridge, PhD, APRN, FAANP, FCCP, FAAN, is the Chief Essentials Program Officer at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), where she leads the national implementation of the new Essentials and nursing's transition to competency-based education. Dr. Corbridge is a Clinical Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Nursing, with over 25 years of experience as a nurse educator, scholar, and acute care nurse practitioner in pulmonary medicine. Her scholarship focuses on innovative team-based, nurse-led practice and educational strategies centered on social determinants of health. Dr. Corbridge's teaching, practice, and educational leadership have been recognized by the American College of Chest Physicians, the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and the American Academy of Nursing.
Kristen Brown DNP, CRNP, CPNP-AC, CHSE-A, FAAN is an Associate Professor and the Interim Associate Dean for Simulation & Immersive Learning at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and the Simulation Strategic Projects Lead for the Johns Hopkins Medicine Simulation Center. In her faculty role, Dr. Brown develops simulation curriculum, plans innovative, immersive training events, and studies simulation as a teaching method. Her passion for simulation education stems from her years in clinical practice as a pediatric critical care nurse practitioner. She has had a 20-year nursing career devoted to the care of critically ill children, and she has worked in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital as a nurse practitioner for 15 years. She is a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator-Advanced® (CHSE-A) by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. In her faculty role, she has incorporated simulation into advanced practice nursing programs, and she has also led the efforts to implement and study new technology to provide innovative solutions for distance learning, including telepresence robots and virtual simulation, including screen-based and virtual reality platforms (VR) across all programs at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
Susan Bindon is an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Educators, and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She earned her BSN at the University of Pittsburgh, and her MS, graduate teaching certificate, and DNP at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.
She has extensive experience teaching in classroom, clinical, and online settings and has mentored many nurses and nurse educators to develop their teaching expertise. She supports clinical educators at the University of Maryland Medical Center and manages a statewide faculty development grant that has prepared over 600 clinical nursing faculty. She is a certified nurse educator and board certified in nursing professional development. She has authored peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and presented widely on effective teaching strategies and professional development.
She is the immediate past-president of the Association for Nursing Professional Development President and served as co-editor of the Journal for Nurses in Professional Development. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, and in 2023 was recognized by the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents Excellence in Teaching award and the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Nursing’s Distinguished Excellence in Teaching alumni award.
Suzan (Suzie) Kardong-Edgren is an internationally known speaker and educational researcher with over 140 publications. Dr. Edgren was a consultant on the landmark US National Council of State Boards of Nursing National Simulation Study that determined that up to 50% of traditional clinical could be replaced with high quality simulation. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Simulation in Nursing for 10 years. She is a past presenter of the Michael Gordon Lectureship in Simulation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. Dr. Edgren is a past chair of the Research Committee for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and recent past President of the International Nursing Association of Clinical Simulation in Nursing (INACSL). She is a Fellow in the Society of Simulation in Healthcare, the Academy of Nursing Education Fellows, and the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Edgren is an Associate Professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston.