Amelie Hollier

DNP, FNP-BC, FAANP

Amelie Hollier is the chief executive officer and president of Advanced Practice Education Associates, the company she co-founded in 1997. She is a nationally certified family nurse practitioner and a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Amelie is an expert on nurse practitioner practice and has presented hundreds of certification exam review courses and lectures on advanced pharmacology and primary care topics. Amelie is known for her informative, engaging speaking style and is an invited speaker at numerous national and state conferences every year. Amelie has authored and co-authored 20 books for primary care providers, including Clinical Guidelines in Primary Care and Family and Adult-Gero Certification Practice Questions. She is the creative mind behind dozens of APEA products that provide educational and practice support to new and experienced NPs.

Lisa Sullivan

Ms. Lisa Sullivan is an alumnus of New Mexico State University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Criminal Justice degree in 1989. She began her career with the DEA in 1990 as a Diversion Investigator in the San Antonio District Office. In 2000 she became the Diversion Group Supervisor in the San Antonio Office. The group was responsible for the dismantling and successful prosecution of one of the first internet pharmaceutical cases in the country. In 2005 Ms. Sullivan was transferred to the E-Commerce Section of the Office of Diversion Control DEA in Washington DC. There she worked on the CSOS program (the newly established controlled substance electronic ordering system), and the electronic prescriptions initiative (EPCS). In November 2007 Ms. Sullivan was promoted to the Diversion Program Manager for the Dallas Division. There she establishes priorities and direction for the Diversion Groups in Dallas, Ft. Worth, Tyler, TX, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa, OK.

Rebecca Burpo

DNP, APRN, CNM, FACNM

Dr. Becky Burpo is an Associate Professor and the Nurse-Midwifery Program Director at TTUHSC since 2015. She has led the growth of the nurse-midwifery program with an annual enrollment that meets or exceeds the population distribution for students of color. She also has integrated program curriculum content on structural racism, health disparities, social determinants, implicit bias, LGBTQ care, and trauma/violence. Becky credits her interest in this topic to graduate school seminars on structural racism and implicit bias that were led by Camara Jones, then president of the American Public Health Association. Becky has enjoyed a long career in women’s health clinical practice, administration, and education, in a variety of sites and programs. She has also engaged in numerous advocacy, policy, and professional service roles. Currently, Becky’s professional service focuses on serving as an accreditation site visitor for the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education (ACME) and the national chair of the Directors of Midwifery Educators (DOME).

She received her DNP from Yale University, post-master’s certificate in midwifery from UT Southwestern/Parkland School of Nurse-Midwifery, MSN from the University of Pittsburgh, and BSN from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.

Carolyn Buppert

JD, MSN

Carolyn Buppert is an attorney who focuses on the legal issues affecting advanced practice clinicians and their employers. Her clients include hospitals, health systems, insurers, physicians and nurse practitioners, visiting nurse agencies, nursing homes, hospices, and schools of nursing and medicine. She practiced as a nurse practitioner for 16 years and as a critical care nurse for 3 years before focusing exclusively on legal matters.

She is the author of 8 books. Among the titles are:

• The Nurse Practitioner's Business Practice and Legal Guide (2017)
• Billing Physician Services Provided by Nurse Practitioners (2017)
• Negotiating Terms of Employment (2016)
• Avoiding Malpractice (2017)
• Prescribing: Preventing Legal Pitfalls (2020)

She is a frequent contributor to Medscape.com. She lectures extensively on the legal issues regarding nursing scope of practice, compliance, prescribing, malpractice, privacy, and reimbursement.

Tara Bearden

MSN, APRN, FNP-C

Tara Bearden holds degrees from TTUHSC. She practices at Texas Tech University HSC Department of Family and Community Medicine. Her background includes Trauma/Surgical ICU, Rapid Response Team, primary care, and most recently telehealth. During the COVID 19 pandemic, she has provided leadership for adopting telehealth in the primary care setting and has had the opportunity to champion/utilize several different telemedicine platforms including Amwell, Zoom, Doximity, and Qliqsoft.

Susan Calloway

PhD, PMHNP, FNP, FAANP

Dr. Susan Calloway is a Professor and Program Director of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner track at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing. She has practiced both as a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and has been an educator of nurse practitioners for over 20 years. Her expertise is in adolescent mental health with a focus on the early recognition and intervention in addressing mental health issues in children along with the management of geriatric behavioral issues in long term care settings.

Dr. Calloway’s research interests are facilitating successful transitions of the college bound adolescent with a mental health disorder to college life, stigma reductions among health care providers related to mental health and the use of telemental health and digital technologies for increasing access to care.

Dr. Calloway has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and has presented at national and regional conferences for NONPF and AANP. She was selected as the Texas Nurse Practitioner of the year, received the AANP Domestic Humanitarian Award and has been inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

CAPT James LaVelle Dickens

RN, DNP, FAAN, FAANP

Captain James Dickens serves in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Regional Office, Office of the Secretary, Region VI Dallas, TX as the Senior Program Manager for the Office of Minority Health. He is an experienced Registered Nurse and Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioner with over thirty years of federal healthcare experience. Capt. Dickens’ clinical experience includes Orthopedics, Emergency Department, Surgical Services, Long-Term Care, and the Primary Care setting.

Capt. Dickens is a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service whose mission is to promote, protect and advance the health and safety of the Nation. He was selected to participate as a clinical team member for the Afghanistan Health Initiative (AHI) in Kabul, Afghanistan. The mission of the AHI was to improve quality of care, and reduce maternal and infant mortality rates at Rabia Balkhi Women’s Hospital in Kabul. Capt. Dickens served as a technical advisor as a member of a Commissioned Corps hospital assistance team in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and St Croix U.S. Virgin Islands.

Capt. Dickens also served as the Officer in Charge of the Commissioned Corps Ebola Response, Team 2 (76 member inter-professional team) serving at the Monrovia Medical Unit (MMU) Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, Liberia-West Africa leading local MMU response efforts. Capt. Dickens has received numerous Nursing leadership and Uniformed Service awards during his career.

Stephanie H. Hoelscher

DNP, RN-BC, CPHIMS, CHISP, FHIMSS

Steph Hoelscher is an Associate Professor of Graduate Informatics and an Informatics Nurse Specialist with the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas (United States). Dr. Hoelscher is board-certified in Nursing Informatics by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and a Fellow in Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). She is a registered nurse with 25 years of experience in oncology, trauma, and informatics. Her current areas of expertise are EHR implementation, workflow assessment and redesign, as well as infectious disease clinical decision support.

Dr. Hoelscher has been an active member of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Adapting Clinical Guidelines for the Digital Age project in its various forms since 2017. Recent highlights include testifying at the Public Health Task Force in Washington, DC, regarding Zika and its impact on health information technology and clinical decision support systems. Dr. Hoelscher is the recipient of the 2018 American Association of Colleges of Nursing and CDCs Doctor of Nursing Practice Informatics award and the 2019 Doctor of Nursing Practice Excellence in Nursing award.