Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk
PhD, APRN-CNP, EBP-C, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN
Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, APRN-CNP, EBP-C, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, is Vice President for Health Promotion and Chief Wellness Officer at The Ohio State University, the first at an institution of higher learning in the nation, where she also is the Helene Fuld Health Trust Professor of Evidence-based Practice in the College of Nursing and Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry in the College of Medicine.
She is also the founder of the Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for Evidence-based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare. Dr. Melnyk is recognized globally for her expertise, leadership, and innovation in evidence-based practice (EBP), child and adolescent mental health, clinician well-being, entrepreneurship, and intervention research as well as her innovative approaches to population health and well-being.
Dr. Melnyk is a frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences and has presented hundreds of workshops on EBP, mental health, intervention research, and health and wellness throughout the nation and the globe. She is the editor of seven books, has more than 590 publications and has received over $36 million of sponsored funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and foundations as a principal investigator.
Dr. Melnyk currently serves as an elected board member and vice chair of the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. Her evidence-based Creating Opportunities for Personal Empowerment (COPE) cognitive-behavioral skills-building programs for depression and anxiety are being used in primary care practices in all 50 states with reimbursement, K-12 schools, and universities across the country as well as in five other countries. Dr. Melnyk is editor-in-chief of Sigma’s journal, Worldviews on Evidence-based Nursing. She serves on the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-being and Resilience, on the advisory board for the American Nurses Association’s Healthy Nurse Healthy Nation initiative and is the founder and immediate past president of the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities, a collaborative organization to improve population health in the nation’s institutions of higher learning.
Dr. Melnyk served on the United States Preventive Services Task Force, the NINR National Advisory Council, and the Behavioral Health Standing Committee of the National Quality Forum. In addition, she served as Dean of The Ohio State University College of Nursing and Arizona State University’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation where she led the colleges to top U.S. News & World Report and NIH research funding rankings. Dr. Melnyk has received numerous awards, including the inaugural NIH/NINR Director’s Distinguished Lectureship Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculty, the Loretta Ford Award from the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, the Nancy Sharpe Cutting-Edge Award by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses Pioneering Spirit Award.
Dr. Melnyk received her BSN from West Virginia University School of Nursing, her MSN and pediatric nurse practitioner education from the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, and her PhD in clinical research and psychiatric nurse practitioner education from the University of Rochester School of Nursing. Dr. Melnyk was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (Academy) in 2002. The Academy has recognized three of Dr. Melnyk’s models as an Edge Runner. Dr. Melnyk is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academies of Practice, and AANP.