Welcome New Faculty
Research
Deonni Stolldorf, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor of Nursing
Dr. Stolldorf is dedicated to determining if innovations in health care are sustainable to enhance organizational performance related to patient safety and the quality and effectiveness of care. She came to VUSN in 2013 as a Veterans Administration Quality Scholar Post-Doctoral Fellow. Her PhD dissertation was titled “The sustainability of innovations in hospitals: A look at rapid response teams” from research conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As part of her doctoral work, she was a pre-doctoral fellow in Health Care Quality and Patient Outcomes at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She has published articles in the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, Military Medicine, Journal of Nursing Law, Japan Journal of Nursing Science and Curationis. She is an adult nurse practitioner who started her career as an Intensive Care Unit nurse, followed by 10 years as a travel ICU nurse and then as a nurse educator. She earned a master’s degree in advanced general nursing from Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa, and her bachelor’s level nursing degree from the University of the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Ruth Wolever, PhD, Associate Professor, Director of Health Coaching: Research, Practice & Education
Dr. Wolever joined VUSN as an Associate Professor and is dually appointed to the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and serves in the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and Health. She is a clinical health psychologist with 21 years of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating behavior change programs for patients and those at risk for chronic disease. She is a nationally recognized expert on Health and Wellness Coaching and one of the elected leaders of the National Consortium for Credentialing Health and Wellness Coaches, a non-profit organization which has launched the first national certification for health and wellness coaches. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, Wolever was the Founding Research Director for Duke Integrative and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. At Duke, she collaboratively developed, led and studied 19 distinct programs targeting stress and behavior change using cutting edge conceptual models and techniques. Wolever is also a national leader in the study of mindfulness-based approaches to self-regulation and lifestyle change (particularly stress and eating behaviors, binge eating, weight loss and weight loss maintenance), as well as innovative treatments for medication adherence, insomnia, tinnitus, and other stress-related disorders. Her clinical research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NCCAM, Office of Women’s Health, NHLBI, and NIDCD), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, industry, and philanthropy.
Academic
Holly Bechard, MSN, APRN-BC, Instructor
Bechard is a new faculty member in the PreSpecialty component of the MSN program. She is a family psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioner who has been employed at Genesis Psychiatric Services in Middle Tennessee, where she provides medication management and brief psychotherapy to patients across the lifespan. She also served as a nursing instructor at Lipscomb University School of Nursing for four years, where she oversaw adjunct clinical nurse faculty involved in leading psychiatric clinicals and was heavily involved in the development of the new nursing education curriculum. She earned an MSN from Vanderbilt and a BA in Psychology from Lipscomb University. She is pursuing her Doctor of Education degree at Lipscomb University.
Jennifer Hensley, EdD, CNM, WHNP-BC, LCCE, Associate Professor
Dr. Hensley is a certified nurse-midwife and women’s health nurse practitioner with more than 37 years of nursing and teaching experience and is teaching in the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner specialty. Since 2004, she has served as Nurse-Midwifery specialty director for the University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, and as the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner specialty director since 2011. Her recent funded scholarship has included a 2014 Practice Survey of Colorado Nurse-Midwives, risk factors in the development of chorioamnionitis and the treatment of restless legs syndrome during pregnancy and lactation. She has published extensively, contributing to book chapters on women’s health and family planning to the undergraduate text “Maternal-Newborn Nursing & Women’s Health,” and a chapter on sexual dysfunction in the graduate text “Principles and Practice of Pharmacology.” Dr. Hensley has also published in journals such as the Maternal Child Nursing/the American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing, the Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Neonatal Nursing, and the Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health. She earned her associate degree in Nursing from El Camino College, a BSN from Biola University, and an MSN and EdD from the University of Southern California.
Robin Hills, DNP, WHNP-BC, MC-C, CNE, Assistant Professor
Dr. Hills is teaching in the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner specialty and is a board-certified women’s health nurse practitioner with more than 20 years of experience in nursing and education. She recently served as a DNP curriculum consultant for the University of Florida College of Nursing and for the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Nursing. She served on the VCU School of Nursing faculty for 10 years, specifically as the Women’s Health Program Coordinator. As a health advocate for underserved women, she was invited to provide to the Virginia General Assembly expert testimony on bills that would improve the health of that population. Her scholarly contributions include numerous publications and presentations on topics such as: evaluating a quality improvement program for cervical cancer screening, menopause and harnessing the power of team-based learning. Her DNP is from the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Nursing, where she won the Outstanding DNP Capstone Award. Dr. Hills was also awarded the highly competitive American Nurse Practitioner Foundation Doctoral Study Scholarship, the UVA School of Nursing—Rodriquez Nursing Student Research and Leadership Scholarship, and the Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners Scholarship. She earned her MS and BS in Nursing from VCU.
Kanah May Lewallen DNP, AGPCNP-BC, Instructor
Dr. Lewallen is teaching in the adult health courses in the PreSpecialty and Specialty levels at VUSN. She is an Adult-Gerontology Primary Care nurse practitioner who has worked in post-acute/long-term care facilities since 2009 and taught in the AGPCNP program. Her current clinical practice is with Vanderbilt Senior Care. Her current research/scholarly interests include: the role of the APRN in post-acute/long-term care, delirium, and providing advanced practice nursing students opportunities for clinical experience in geriatrics and post-acute/long-term care. Dr. Lewallen earned an MSN from VUSN and a DNP from Belmont University. She is president of the Middle Tennessee chapter for the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurse Association and chair of the Association’s Post-Acute/Long-Term Care Special Interest Group.
Jessica Anne Rogers DNP, MSN, FNP-BC, WHNP-BC, Instructor
Dr. Rogers is a Family Nurse Practitioner and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner who teaches in the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner specialty. She also assists in the Family Nurse Practitioner specialty. She earned a DNP, an MSN and a Post-Master’s Certificate from the Vanderbilt School of Nursing, where she distinguished herself with outstanding student awards in both specialties.
Her DNP capstone project was titled “Identification of Primary Care Providers’ Perceived Barriers to Screening for Urinary Incontinence in Women.” During her Post-Master’s education, she was one of the initial co-coordinators responsible for developing the Sexual Assault Awareness program. She also served as co-collaborator on the revision of Sexual Assault Center of Nashville’s Crisis Line. Rogers has served as a guest lecturer at Union University School of Nursing and attended the Society of Urologic Nurses and Associate’s recent advanced practice symposium. She earned a BSN from Samford University in Alabama.
Kyla Stripling, MMHC, MSN, APRN, ACNP-BC, Instructor
Stripling is an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner specializing in Spine Neurosurgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and is teaching in the PreSpecialty component of the MSN program. She earned her Master of Science in Nursing from Vanderbilt University and completed her undergraduate degree at Florida State University. She serves as Advance Practice Provider Team Leader for the Neurosciences and had a prior clinical appointment at Belmont University School of Nursing. She has clinical experience in ambulatory and acute settings within Oncology, Neurology and Internal Medicine. Her recent clinical research interests include post-operative lumbar surgical pain outcomes. She serves as co-chair for Advanced Practice Nurse Clinical Practice Grand Rounds Steering Committee.
Timothy L. Wilson, DNP, PMHNP, FNP, Instructor
Dr. Wilson is a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Family Nurse Practitioner and practices in both capacities at a local hospital. He earned his Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in 2014 and his DNP scholarly project was titled “HIV Stigma within Healthcare Settings: Implications for Retention-in-Care in Middle Tennessee.” Additionally, Wilson completed an MSN from VUSN in the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program, a Family Nurse Practitioner Post-Master’s certificate at Middle Tennessee State University, a Master of Science degree in management and organizational change from the New School for Social Research in New York, and a Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, from Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is pursuing a PhD in Nursing at Oregon Health & Science University where he was named a 2015-2016 Hearst Scholar in OHSU’s Hartford Center for Gerontological Nursing Excellence. Prior to nursing, Wilson had a successful career providing quality, strategy and leadership initiatives for several Fortune 100 Companies.
Clinical
Andrea Mana, MSN, CNM
Mana is a certified nurse-midwife at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing’s West End Women’s Health Center. She has served as nurse in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Labor and Delivery department for more than three years. There, she handled triage and high-risk antepartum cases as well as implemented education for registered nurses as part of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. This initiative seeks to create an environment conducive to breastfeeding and maternal-infant bonding in the hospital setting. Her graduate clinical experiences include women’s clinics, medical centers and Fort Carson, Evans Army Community Hospital in Colorado Springs. She earned a MSN in Nurse-Midwifery in 2014 and a BSN, with honors, from Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
Amanda Perry, MSN, CNM, RN
Perry is a certified nurse-midwife at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing’s West End Women’s Health Center. She received her BSN from Belmont University in 2010 and started working as a registered nurse in the Pediatric Emergency Department at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. During her five years at the hospital, she rose to the charge nurse role. She functioned as a preceptor, worked with a variety health care team members, consulting specialties, and provided education to families. She graduated with a MSN in Nurse-Midwifery, finishing her coursework in December 2014.
