Gina Della Porta
Grants Specialist, WakeMed

Gina has over 10 years of experience managing research studies and overseeing the preparation of research and program grant applications. She completed her undergraduate education at the University of Connecticut and obtained a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences at Quinnipiac University. Previous positions include serving as a Research Coordinator at the Yale University School of Medicine and Haskins Laboratories, and as Head of Research Development for the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lisa M. Diegel BSN, RN, CEN
Abington Memorial Hospital

Lisa has 20 years of nursing experience in critical care and emergency nursing. She currently is in the Family Nurse Practitioner Tract at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, PA. Lisa has 5 years of experience in simulation education. Lisa has developed, implemented and instructed comprehensive education using high fidelity simulation in the Emergency Trauma Center. Lisa serves as the chairman of the newly formed simulation council. Her enthusiasm is evident as she assists nursing educators to build scenario libraries and develop simulation courses that will improve patient care outcomes throughout the institution.

Josephine V. Atinaja-Faller
Assistant Professor, Director of the Dotson Clinical Simulation and Learning Lab, Simmons College School of Nursing and Health Sciences

Josephine has been teaching for Simmons College for 20 years. She is responsible for the building of the Dotson Simulation Lab and has developed the Simulation Program for the entire undergraduate and graduate nursing department and is responsible for its’ integration into the nursing curriculum. Josephine maintains a current practice in maternal child health nursing at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in postpartum/newborn nursery. She has presented at numerous national and international conferences on the use of nursing simulation and integrating culture into the curriculum using high fidelity simulations and standardized patients.

Kenneth H. Grubbs Jr., MBA, RN
AVP, Programs at the National Patient Safety Program

Kenneth leads the development of patient safety programs at the National Patient Safety Program. He has an extensive background in the health care industry with primary concentrations in Emergency Services, Intensive Care Nursing, and patient safety and quality improvement. His most recent responsibilities at HCA included working for the HCA Quality Standards department in which he assisted facilities to ensure HCA patient safety initiatives were implemented and regulatory compliance was maintained.

Beth Fentress Hallmark, RN, MSN, PhD
Director of Simulation for the College of Health Sciences

Beth graduated with her BSN from Belmont College in 1986. She held the position of Clinical Nurse Specialist for Pediatric Surgery at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital through 1996 when she began as an Instructor of Child and Family Nursing at Belmont University. She held this position until the fall of 2006 when she was named Lab Director at Belmont. In the Fall of 2009, she was named Director of Simulation for the College of Health Sciences at Belmont. She has helped integrate simulation into the College where currently she is working with Pharmacy, OT, PT, Nursing and Social Work to develop a vision for simulation education at the college level.

Linda A. Hunter, CNM, EdD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Among her regular duties, Dr. Hunter has been a member of the Department of OB/GYN Midwifery Section at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, RI for the past four years. In her clinical faculty role at WIH, Dr. Hunter actively participates in the education of medical students and both EM and OB/GYN residents. She coordinates specific midwifery sponsored workshops and core lectures that have often included simulation experiences. Dr Hunter has also lectured extensively on a variety of women’s health topics and been the recipient of several Excellence in Teaching Awards for Medical Student and Resident Education.

Betty Ishoy, MSN, RN-C
Assistant Professor and Simulation Coordinator, University of West Georgia

Betty has 24 years of clinical nursing experience beginning as an RN from an Associate Degree program. She has taught in several clinical courses and most recently coordinates the Fundamentals course for BSN students. Betty believes the value of simulation is a safe environment where students can practice clinical skills, reasoning and decision-making. Faculty can also assess clinical progress in a controlled and consistent environment. Betty actively participates in school and university committees, curriculum revision and advising students. She is also pursuing doctoral education at Kennesaw State University.

Terri Jenkins
Director of Simulation for Academic Programs, UTA Smart Hospital™

Terri has been involved in nursing education for over ten years. She moved from the class room to the simulation lab by accepting the role of Director of Simulation for Academic Programs at the University of Texas at Arlington’s Smart Hospital. Her duties have been expanded to include many of the general management responsibilities of the Smart Hospital including: supervision of a wonderful staff of individuals skilled in all aspects of simulation, equipment management, development of scenarios, and evaluation of students through simulation.

Pamela Leonard
Clinical Simulation Director, Simulation and Training Environment Lab (SiTEL) of MedStar Health

Pamela has worked in Healthcare Education and Leadership for over twenty years. Pam has spent the past five years overseeing the operations and curricula at several simulation centers in the greater Washington D.C. region. In addition to her role at SiTEL, Pam is a clinical simulation site reviewer for the Society of Simulation in Healthcare (SSIH), a committee member for the American College of Surgeons, Accredited Education Institutes (ACS AEI), the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) Simulation Consortium and is a Faculty Associate for the National Center for Human Factors Engineering in Healthcare of the MedStar Institute for Innovation.

Felix Marquez, BA, EMT-P
President/CEO, Orlando Medical Institute

Felix is a well-respected veteran in the emergency medical field with over 16 years of experience. Mr. Marquez began his career as a Paramedic for the New York City Fire Department. He currently serves the great City of Orlando as Certified Paramedic/Firefighter. Felix is also the President, Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Top-Lead Instructor of the Orlando Medical Institute (also known as OMI). He has single handedly created the very first Simulation Technician Course and curriculum for Orange County Public Schools, Orlando Tech and has also recently begun speaking on a national level as the Simulation Development Spokesman for CLINCON.

Amar Pravin Patel, Manager
Medical Simulation Center, WakeMed Health & Hospitals

As the Director of the Center for Innovative Learning at WakeMed Health & Hospitals, Mr. Patel is responsible for integrating technology-based educational programs to include human patient simulation, healthcare gaming, hybrid education, and intellectual property development into regional programs. He is a member of the organizations Center for Patient Safety and Safety Events Review Team, as well as chairs both the Capital Area Regional Advisory Performance Improvement committee and the Association for Air Medical Services Medical Transport Educators Section.

Fran Ambrozic Powell
Simulation Education Specialist, Center for Innovative Learning at WakeMed Health & Hospitals

With more than 25 years of experience in nursing and nursing education, Fran brings the nursing perspective to WakeMed’s medical simulation program. Fran assists in development of internal and external simulation programming. She is responsible for providing simulation based education to more than 70 departments internally as well as multiple outside agencies. Her responsibilities also include developing simulation programs, creating educational objectives, developing scenarios, insuring simulation provides a safe learning environment and implementing all appropriate aspects of technology in to an educational program.

Rebecca Sander, RN, MSN
Rural RN Residency Coordinator, Hays Medical Center

Rebecca has over 30 years of experience as a nurse educator in LPN, ADN and BSN education along with staff nursing experiences in both rural and urban acute care facilities specializing in adult medical/surgical, oncology, case management and hospice and palliative care. She has presented at state, national and international conferences on topics related to nursing education and acute care nursing and more recently simulation. Rebecca is currently incorporating the use of simulation in transition to practice residency programs for Hays Medical Center and the critical access hospitals in the rural areas of northwest Kansas.

Stephanie D. Sanders DrNP©, MBA, BSN, RN-C
Clinical Nurse Educator, Abington Memorial Hospital

Stephanie has 17 years of nursing experience in critical care, post anesthesia care, emergency nursing, nursing instructor and is currently employed as a clinical nurse educator. Stephanie has 4 years of experience in simulation education. Her introduction to simulation started with a new program at the hospital that included simulation as an educational tool. Since then Stephanie has developed, implemented and instructed comprehensive education using high fidelity simulation at the school of nursing as well as at the hospital.

Joanie Selman
Course Coordinator Medical-Surgical Nursing, Stephen F. Austin State University

Joanie is an alumni of Stephen F. Austin State University and The University of Texas at Tyler. As course coordinator of medical-surgical nursing she developed and implemented the simulation component within the curriculum of Med-Surg at SFASU. As part of the Simulation/Building Committee, she helped to plan the new simulation facility at the DeWitt School of Nursing at SFA which has been designated as a Laerdal Center of Educational Excellence.

Robin Shields, RNC-OB
Medical Director, Center for Innovative Learning at WakeMed Health & Hospitals

Robin has 22 years experience as a Registered Nurse in Maternal-Child Health with 4 years focused as a research nurse in simulation based medical education. Building upon 7 years as an NRP instructor, she coordinated three NRP research protocols involving Pediatric, Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine residents evaluating effectiveness of simulation for teaching and retention. Over the past year, her work defined the success of the multidisciplinary Massive Blood Transfusion protocol, the Adult Medical Service microsystems evaluation, Falls and Fractures Program, and WIH Emergency Evacuation planning for the entire hospital.

Graham E. Snyder, MD
Medical Director, Center for Innovative Learning at WakeMed Health and Hospitals

Graham obtained a Chemical Engineering degree with focus in the BioSciences from North Carolina State University. Upon graduating, he was accepted into the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and subsequently specialized in emergency medicine at North Shore University Hospital in New York. Since 2002, Graham has practiced emergency medicine in Raleigh, North Carolina at WakeMed Health and Hospitals and served as a professor in emergency medicine for the emergency medicine residents at UNC.

Michael A. Tijerina, BSN, RN
National Patient Care Services, Kaiser Permanente, Professional Development Consultant

Michael’s clinical background includes adult psych, emergency department nursing, PICC/IV Specialist, leadership and education of med/surg/ortho/tele units. During that time, he opened the Performance and Quality Improvement Center (aka. SimLab), established a local simulation collaborative, and served as HeartCode ACLS lead instructor for a hospital based physician group. Michael is currently a member of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and has the honor to be part of the IMSH session selection team for the past two years.

Nancy Tofil
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Tofil is the medical director of the pediatric simulation center and the associate pediatric program director. She has run hundreds of pediatric simulation courses ranging from attending pediatric critical care physicians to pediatric cardiac intensive care teams to high school students. In addition she has programmed over a hundred pediatric simulation cases.

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Maureen Tremel, MSN, ARNP, CNE
Nursing Professor and Clinical Simulation Specialist for the Nursing Dept., Seminole State College

Currently, Professor Tremel is the lead instructor for Pharmacology and also advises faculty on the development and implementation of clinical simulation and online instruction. The center has since gained recognition in Central Florida as a model for a highly technical yet interactive learning space. In 2009, she was appointed as the Nursing Curriculum and Technology Director for Seminole State’s Regional Nursing Career Pathway Initiative., a $2 million, three-year U.S. Department of Labor Community-Based Job Training Grant.