Fellowship in Health Policy and Media
The Fellowship in Health Policy and Media has two aims:
- To increase the health policy knowledge, skills and scholarship of Fellows
- To increase the visibility of nurses in the media by improving the skills of healthcare professionals, researchers, and journalists in disseminating their expertise.
The Fellowship is a year-long (beginning July 1), non-residential, unpaid program in which each Fellow is paired with a GW Nursing faculty mentor with similar areas of scholarship. Fellows design and execute their own fellowship projects relevant to health policy, media, nursing, and healthcare.
2023-2025 Fellows
We are excited to welcome and congratulate our current cohort of fellows!
- Lilian Bravo, PhD, RN
Mentor: Barbara Glickstein
Project: Suicide prevention awareness among Latinx youth and young adults
Outcomes:
- Disseminating current work via new outlets
- Lilian G. Bravo, Jocelyn Meza, Sara J. Schiff, Charisse Ahmed, Thomas Elliot, Jaime La Charite, Kristen Choi; Parental Legal System Involvement, Positive Childhood Experiences, and Suicide Risk. Pediatrics June 2024; 153 (6): e2023062566. 10.1542/peds.2023-062566
- Article highlighted in Healio
- More DEI Bans Will Have Dire Side Effects for Public Health - MedPage Today op-ed
- Appeared on AAP's "Pediatric On Call" podcast – 'Forever Chemicals' or PFAS, How Positive Childhood Experiences Affect Children with Incarcerated Parents
- Lilian G. Bravo, Jocelyn Meza, Sara J. Schiff, Charisse Ahmed, Thomas Elliot, Jaime La Charite, Kristen Choi; Parental Legal System Involvement, Positive Childhood Experiences, and Suicide Risk. Pediatrics June 2024; 153 (6): e2023062566. 10.1542/peds.2023-062566
- Disseminating current work via new outlets
- Anna Dermenchyan, PhD, RN, CCRN, CPHQ
Mentor: Y. Tony Yang
Project: Examining heart failure, respiratory vaccination rates, policies, and the impact of nursing
Outcomes:
- Dermenchyan, A., Choi, K. R., Bokhoor, P. R., Cho, D. J., Delavin, N. L. A., Chima-Melton, C., Han, M. A., & Fonarow, G. C. (2025). Receipt of respiratory vaccines among patients with heart failure in a multicenter health system registry. Vaccine, 46, 126682.
- Get your flu shot now: deadly flu season peaks in winter between December, February - picked up by the McClatchy group and published in multiple news outlets
- Amplify your voice through persuasive op-eds - Sigma publication
- Studied and collected data on heart failure and other health outcomes in correlation to the uptake of the influenza vaccine and other respiratory vaccinations
- Taneika Duhaney, MHAP
Mentor: Melissa Batchelor
Project: Examining the intersection of cycling, micromobility, and nursing
Outcomes:
- Conducted research on the history of nursing and micromobility, including cycling
- Created a podcast to highlight nurses + cycling – Watts the Angle
- Ep 1 - Ify Okoye, Director for Outpatient Continuing Care at Kaiser Permanente, talks about cycling, health outcomes, and team building
- Ep 2 - Vlada Nedak, CEO of Project Kesher, an NGO in Ukraine that uses Ukrainian-made e-bikes and nurses to deliver care to 11,000 patients / month
- Ep 3 - Colin Browne, Washington Area Bicyclist Association Communications Director, discusses how federal workers can leverage biking to make commuting easier, given the EO eliminating remote and hybrid federal work
- Sterling Wilmer, BSN-RN, BA
Mentor: Karen Drenkard
Project: The Community Resiliency Project
Outcomes:
- Ted Talk x JHU - Resilience is Rooted in Community
- Submitted application for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant for Health Equity for Slowtalk NRP Initiative
- Community centered mental health social media initiative with Miss America
- Approved to write two pieces for the Johns Hopkins Nursing Magazine online blog “On the Pulse”
- Policy Erosion and Mental Health: Protecting Queer Youth Autonomy
- Global Health in Flux: Nursing Practice Amid WHO Withdrawal
Incoming 2025-2026 Fellows
Join us in congratulating our incoming cohort of Fellows!
- Yvette Conyers
Mentor: Joyce Pulcini
- Makaila Davis
Mentor: Suzan Ulrich
- Rajashree Koppolu
Mentors: Diana Mason and Barbara Glickstein
- Esther Arimon Pagès
Mentor: Hildegart Gonzalez
- Michael Savas
Mentor: Ric Ricciardi
Fellowship Presentations
Join us for the Health Policy and Media Fellowship final presentations to hear about the impactful reseach and unique projects being done by our 2023-2025 Fellows.
Date: June 11th, 2025 - 4:00-5:30 PM ET
Presenters: 2023-2025 Health Policy and Media Fellows
- 2024 Final Fellowship Presentations
Date: June 13th, 2PM-4PM ET
Presenters: 2023-2024 Health Policy and Media Fellows
- 2023 Final Fellowship Presentations
Date: June 6th, 12PM-1:30PM ET
Presenters: 2022-2023 Health Policy and Media Fellows
- 2022 Final Fellowship Presentations
Date: June 24th, 11AM - 2PM ET
Presenter: 2021-2022 Health Policy and Media Fellows
Past Fellows and Accomplishments
- Nikki E. Akparewa, RN, MSN/MPH (2023-2024)
Mentor: Julianna Gonzalez McLean
Project: Breaking Barriers Masterclass: Navigating Health Equity
Outcomes:
- Led a masterclass called, "Navigating Health Equity - a Clinician's Interactive Journey Beyond the Theory: Building Your Skill and Toolbox to Help Clinicians, Educators & Faculty to Move Nurses Toward Health Equity"
- Completed her Fellowship capstone in collaboration with Caritas Coaching: "Fostering Transformational Leadership in Nursing: Integrating Caritas Coaching and Critical Caring Dialogue to Address Health Equity"
- Blandine Augustin, DNP, FNP (2023-2024)
Mentor: Laurie Theeke
Project: Adopting the Medicare Annual Wellness Visit into Clinical Practice
Outcomes:
- Develop a Medicare Annual Wellness Visit program and policy implementation strategy using Kotter’s 8 step change model - implemented at an FQHC in the DMV
- Conducted and wrote a policy analysis and literature review, looking at the AWV policy's value added and the feasibility of implementation (submission pending)
- Submitted a 60-minute presentation proposal to the AANP for the 2025 AANP National Conference
- Carrie Ann Langley, PhD, MPH, PMHNP-BC, DNP (2023-2024)
Mentor: Tony Roberson
Project: Transitions from Incarceration: A Health Policy Analysis
Outcomes:
- Conducted policy analysis to examine the policies of probation and offer some courses of action that could support individuals on probation in making those health-illness and situational transitions during re-entry.
- Submitted op-ed to Arizona Public Media exploring her policy analysis on reentry
- Submitted to Public Health Nursing – policy analysis: health policy and reentry
- Developing curriculum for DNP program focused on justice and reentry
- Got challenge funding from NIDA for researching the role of primary care in drug abuse prevention / mental health support post-reentry
- Milisa Manojlovich, PhD, RN, FAAN (2023-2024)
Mentor: Diana Mason
Project: Learning how to leverage Op-eds and radio interviews to create impact beyond traditional academic products
Outcomes:
- Radio interview on HealthCetera, Jan 2024
- Op-eds in progress
- Lisa Beasley, DNP, APRN, FNP-C (2021-2023)
Mentor: Melissa Batchelor
Project topic overview:
- Create a podcast
Outcomes:
- That’s Healthful Podcast
- Target audience – providers & general public
- 80 + fully produced episodes, tracking with metrics for success
- Promotion with social media, utilize graphic design
- Soliciting funding
- Had other fellows / mentors as guest speakers
- Expert content guests from all over the country
- Use of social media for promotion:
- Website: https://
thatshealthful.com/ - Facebook: www.facebook.com/
thatshealthful - X, formerly known as Twitter: @nowhealthful
- Instagram: @thatshealthful
- Website: https://
- Hildegart Gonzalez, PhD (2021-2023)
Mentor: Ric Ricciardi
Project topic overviews and outcomes:
- The journalistic narrative and the nursing narrative around nursing in the media and on social networks
- The nursing sector in media and Social Media: knowledge, uses, expectations, attitudes, risks and opportunities. Nurses’ mass media and social media communications competencies development
- Protocol accepted in PROSPERO “Nursing in social media and mass media: risks and opportunities. A systematic review”
- Publication in TESELA (nursing management journal in Spain): Nurses’ communicative competence: key to achieving a narrative of their own
- Political and decision-making competence in nurses
- Interprofessional team received Nursing Management Research award in Spain given by national association of nursing managers
- Systematic review to identify what scientific evidence exists on the training nurses receive for participation and political decision making
Named a finalist, by the Consejo General de Colegios Oficiales de Enfermeria de Espana, for "person outside the profession who has contributed most to the field of nursing"
- Kasey Jordan, RN, PhD (2021-2023)
Mentor: Joyce Pulcini
Project topic overview:
- School nurse innovation leadership during the COVID-19 response and how school nurse leadership uses media
Outcomes
- Interviews and conversations with school nurses nationwide on perception of rule, use of media, and influence of media on the profession
- Publication: School Nurse Perceptions of Continuing Education: Identifying the Process of Engagement
- Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations blog post: Moving the Conversation on Climate Change
- Interview with MUSC publication – Nurse researcher tracks innovation in school public health settings
- That’s Healthful podcast guest
- Danielle Altares Sarik, PhD, APRN, CPNP-PC (2021-2023)
Mentor: Ashley Darcy-Mahoney
Project topic overview:
- Using media to emphasize the role of innovative nurse-led interventions in addressing barriers to care in pediatrics
Outcomes:
- Media campaign to highlight role of nurses at the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital
- Wrote story on nurse-led innovation - “Baby Steps Program Makes a Difference for NICU Babies and Families”
- Published in Clinical Simulation in Nursing: "Baby Steps Program: Telehealth Nursing Simulation for Undergraduate Public Health Nursing Students"
- Wrote book chapter in Worldwide Successful Pediatric Nurse-Led Models of Care: "Baby Steps: Improving the Transition from Hospital to Home for Neonatal Patients and Caregivers Through a Nurse-Led Telehealth Program
- Successfully pitched story on nurse-led innovation to the Miami Herald, “Parents of premature infants get lifeline with nurses when baby leaves the hospital”
- Published in Journal of Pediatric Nursing: "A telehealth nursing intervention to improve the transition from the neonatal intensive care unit to home for infants & caregivers: Preliminary evaluation"
- Op-Ed in the Hill: We’ve put America’s children last and it shows.
- 4+ podcast appearances: That’s Healthful, Wellness Warriors, RN Mentor, and HealthCetera
- Received the 2023 Healthcare Innovation Award for the Baby Steps Program
- Baby Steps: Nurse-led Telehealth for Transition of Care named one of four "Edge Runners", Nurse-Designed Models Designated for Recognition at the 2023 AAN Health Policy Conference
- Kristen Choi, PhD, MS, RN (2021-2022)
Mentor: Tony Roberson
Project topic overview:
- Lessons on leveraging media for mental health policy advocacy
- Policy to increase access to mental health care / telehealth expansion
Outcomes:
- Letters to the Editor published in LA Times, “Freedom for mentally ill Californians isn’t’ the problem. The lack of care options is”
- NPR appearance to discuss conservatorship
- Southern California Public Radio: “Governor Newsom’s CARE Court Will Compel Some People To Mental Health Treatment. But Will It Help Them? Or Create More Harm?”
- Published: Looking to the VA for a roadmap on how to sustain tele-mental health care
- Brittany DiNatale RN, BSN (2021-2022)
Mentor: Karen Drenkard
Project topic overview:
- Workplace violence against nurses
Outcomes:
- American Nurse publication, “Workplace violence: What Can Nurses Do?”
- ANA End Nurse Abuse Campaign – nurse stakeholder on steering committee
- That’s Healthful podcast guest
- Creation of “What Can I Do” resource providing actionable steps for nurses to combat workplace violence
- Naila Russell, DNP, CRNP (2020-2022)
Mentor: Sherrie Wallington
Project topic overview:
- The responses of nursing organizations to address/acknowledge structural racism and racial justice (following the death of George Floyd)
Outcomes:
- Opinion piece in the JNP, “America Needs Nurse Practitioners to Advocate for Social Justice”
- Published in PPNP, “Structural Racism in America: A Summative Content Analysis of National Nursing Organization Statements”
- Guest on "That's Healthful" podcast to discuss structural racism in nursing
- Presented at the Maryland Nurses Association 119th Annual Convention
- Ashley Waddell PhD, RN (2019-2021)
Mentor: Joyce Pulcini
Project topic overview:
- Conduct a research project examining content shared by national nursing organizations on social media in the months/weeks preceding the 2018- midterm elections and/or the 2020 US Presidential election.
- Titled "Nursing Organizations' Health Policy Content on Facebook and Twitter Preceding the 2020 US Presidential Election"
Outcomes:
- Published editorial in PPNP - "Business over mission: Whose voices are being heard?"
- Published in Journal of Advanced Nursing - "Measuring nurses' health policy participation: WSPPIR instrument development and psychometric evaluation"
- Presented on the topics of health policy participation and influence at the Latino Leadership Institute run by the National Hispanic Nurses Association
- Eileen Fry-Bowers PhD, JD, RN, CPNP, FAAN (2019-2020)
Mentor: Ric Ricciardi
Project Overview:
- Conduct a research project examining the relationships between the political beliefs, religiosity, and ethical values of nurses and their civic and media engagement using surveys and interview
Outcomes:
- Published in GW Health Policy Series and co-published in PPNP - "A Matter of Conscience: Examining the Law and Policy of Conscientious Objection in Health Care"
- Carole Myers PhD, RN, FAAN (2018-2020)
Mentor: Diana Mason
Project Overview:
- Submit and publish national Op-eds and policy briefs
- Collaborate on planning of the Strategic Use of Media by Nursing Organizations Summit
Outcomes:
- Published in American Journal of Nursing - What Nurses Need to Know about Health Care Reform Proposals
- Published in The Hill - Major Medicaid cuts to address the increasing federal deficit are misdirected
- Published in STAT - Nurses play vital roles in health care. Why are they invisible in the media?
Fellowship sponsored webinars
Policy Analysis Processes
Date: December 7, 2023
Presenter: Ric Ricciardi, GW Nursing
Professional Use of Social Media in Healthcare
Date: September 20, 2023
Presenter: Melissa Batchelor, GW Nursing
Perspectives on Policy: Writing Op-Eds, Blogs, and Commentaries
Date: March 24, 2022 - 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Presenter: Diana Mason, GW Nursing
Disseminating The Future of Nursing 2020-2030 Report: Strategies and Challenges
Date: January 26, 2022 - 1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
Presenter: Ashley Darcy-Mahoney, GW Nursing
Using Social Media to Influence Policy
Date: Wed, October 20, 2021 - 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Presenter: Melissa Batchelor, GW Nursing
Fellowship Application Information
The application cycle for the Fellowship in Health Policy and Media is now closed.
Questions? Email nursingpolicy
gwu [dot] edu (nursingpolicy[at]gwu[dot]edu).
- Fellowship Overview
Applications are invited from individuals with a record of accomplishment in healthcare practice, research, leadership, media, and/or policy and a demonstrated interest in health policy and media. Each Fellow develops and implements a project focusing on a specific policy and/or media area relevant to nursing / healthcare. Suggested areas of scholarship are proposed below.
This unpaid, non-residential Fellowship is one year in length (July 1, 2025 - June 30, 2026) but may be extended for up to one additional year. Conditions permitting, fellows may be encouraged travel to Washington, D.C. at least once during the year to meet with Center faculty and staff. Other work is conducted through distance technology. Fellows work with their faculty mentor to identify deliverables and participate in Center activities.
Fellows are provided with:
- Mentorship with a Center faculty member
- Opportunities to network
- Opportunity to expand knowledge of a specified area of health policy and enhance media accumen with the support of GW faculty expertise
- Development of expertise in the translation of research findings into policy recommendations
- Continuing education opportunities, including participation in Center sponsored webinars and conferences
- Access to GW library resources and research support
- Courtesy appointment as a GW Senior Research Service Professor
- Who Can Apply
The Fellowship is open to healthcare professionals (e.g., nurses, social workers, pharmacists, dentists, psychologists, physicians, public health professionals), journalists, media professionals, policy analysts and researchers. Applicants should demonstrate an interest in and commitment to health, healthcare, and influencing health policy and media at the international, federal, state or local levels.
New to this application cycle, we are offering the opportunity for a Spanish speaking scholar, with some proficiency in English, to apply with a project focused on media and health communication strategies. It is acceptable for the application to be written in either English or Spanish. If you have questions, please contact ricricciardi
gwu [dot] edu.- Suggested Areas of Scholarship
- Aging
- AI in healthcare
- Chronic condition management
- Dementia
- Gerontology
- Health communications (Spanish speaking applicant)
- Health disparities
- Healthcare simulation
- Informatics
- Inter-professional education
- Long-term care
- Maternal / child health
- Media and nursing (Spanish speaking applicant)
- Nursing workforce
- Oncology
- Pediatrics
- Primary care
- Tobacco policy
- Vaccine policy
- Veteran health
- Workforce burnout
- Application Requirements
To be considered for this Fellowship, please complete the online application below by March 14th, 2025. Be prepared to submit the following:
- A current Curriculum Vitae
- A Statement of Purpose, no more than two pages, outlining:
- Professional background, including policy and/or media experience
- Interest in the Fellowship
- Scholarship topic of interest (preferably related to one of the suggested topics above)
- A proposal - including deliverables - for a project to be completed during the Fellowship