The President’s Academic Fellowship Program at Frontier Nursing University is a prestigious initiative established to recognize and support outstanding faculty members who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to their field and made meaningful contributions to our academic community.
This selective program offers fellows the opportunity to engage in focused leadership development alongside a small cohort of esteemed colleagues. This year’s participants will play an active role in advancing the university’s mission through their participation in our strategic planning processes, helping to shape the future direction of Frontier Nursing University.
President’s 2025-2026 Academic Fellows
Dr. Megan Arbour joined the faculty at Frontier in 2018 and is currently a Professor of Nursing and Course Coordinator in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. She previously held the position of Associate Professor of Clinical Nursing at the University of Cincinnati.
After graduating from Susquehanna University with a Bachelor of Music in Music Education, Dr. Arbour earned her degrees in midwifery and nursing at Ohio State University. She went on to practice clinically in and around the Columbus, Ohio, area as a staff nurse (2004-2007) and as a certified nurse-midwife
(2007-2009). Dr. Arbour is a Fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) and received the ACNM Excellence in Teaching Award while at the University of Cincinnati in 2017. In 2024, she was presented with a DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurse Educators as a faculty member at Frontier.
Her organizational and volunteer experiences include serving as the former Chair of ACNM’s Committee for the Advancement of Midwifery Education. Dr. Arbour holds memberships in the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties as well as the Association for Higher Education and Disability.
Dr. Anne Z. Cockerham has served on the faculty at FNU since May 2009. She is currently Course Coordinator of NM702 Care During Normal Pregnancy. Previously she was the Director of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (2016-2018), Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (2015-2018), and Associate Dean of Midwifery and Women’s Health (2014-2015).
Dr. Cockerham is the author of two award-winning books that celebrate the history of the Frontier Nursing Service: Rooted in the Mountains, Reaching to the World: Stories of Nursing and Midwifery at Kentucky’s Frontier School, 1939-1989, published in 2012, and Unbridled Service: Growing Up and Giving Back as a Frontier Nursing Service Courier, 1928-2010, published in 2014.
Her clinical midwifery experience includes full-scope care in a private, midwifery-owned practice and a military setting; outpatient-only care in a number of collaborative practices; and care of underserved women in a community free clinic.
Dr. Cockerham earned a BSN from the University of Virginia, MSN from Case Western Reserve University, and certificates in nurse-midwifery and women’s health nurse practitioner from the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing. She earned a PhD in Nursing from the University of Virginia.
She is a Fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) and received ACNM’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2021). She is a three-time recipient of the FNU Student Choice Award for Teaching Excellence.
Dr. Bonni S. Cohen joined the faculty at Frontier Nursing University in 2018 and is currently an Associate Professor in the FNP program. Before coming to Frontier, she was an Associate Dean and Associate Professor at Valdosta State University’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences.
Dr. Cohen earned her BSN from the University of Akron and her MSN from the Medical College of Ohio. She went on to get her DNP at the University of Massachusetts –Boston. Most recently, in 2023 she earned her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
In addition to her work as a professor, Dr. Cohen has served as a nurse since 1983 when she first worked as an RN at the Children’s Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio. She currently practices at Cohen Cardiology in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Cohen is a member of Sigma Theta Tau honor society, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculty, the Heart Failure Society of America, the American Association of Heart Failure Nurses, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
In 2013, Dr. Cohen received the Regional Nurse Recognition Award while working in Georgia. In 2016, she was accepted as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
Dr. Jeffrey Dobbins is a dedicated Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with 15 years of experience in the field. He became a full-time faculty member at Frontier Nursing University in 2021. Dr. Dobbins earned his Doctor of Nursing Practice from FNU (2019). Prior to that, he obtained an MSN from Midwestern State University, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Oklahoma, and an Associates of Applied Science in Nursing from Western Oklahoma State College. Additionally, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
Since 2014, Dr. Dobbins has been an integral part of the medical staff at North Texas State Hospital – Maximum Security Unit, where he specializes in Forensic Psychiatry. His work focuses on the intersection of mental health and the legal system, providing crucial care and expertise in this challenging area of underserved individuals.
Dr. Dobbins was the first Advanced Practice Registered Nurse appointed as Assistant Medical Director of North Texas State Hospital. In this role, he works to advance the role of Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) and eliminate unnecessary restrictions and barriers to APRN practice. Dr. Dobbins has also provided outpatient mental health care at Helen Farabee Centers, serving nineteen rural Texas counties to ensure that communities with limited access to mental health services receive care.
Dr. Torica T. Fuller is Clinical Transition Coordinator and Assistant Professor at Frontier Nursing University. She is a dual-certified Advanced Practice Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She is also certified as a Women’s Healthcare Nurse Practitioner by the National Certification Corporation.
Dr. Fuller earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from East Carolina University (ECU), her Master’s and FNP Post-Masters certification from Indiana Wesleyan University, and her DNP from ECU. She completed her Post-Graduate Women’s Health Care Certificate at Frontier Nursing University in 2023.
Dr. Fuller joined FNU in April 2023 as the FNP Clinical Transition Coordinator (CBTC)/Course Coordinator/Lead Course Faculty and the Course Coordinator of the FNP712 virtual course.
As a public health provider, Dr. Fuller serves uninsured and underinsured pediatric and adult patients in clinics such as Women’s Health, Pediatrics, Adult Health (Communicable Disease), and Epidemiology.
In 2025, Dr. Fuller was one of three FNU faculty members selected by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) to participate in the organization’s 2025 Diversity Leadership Institute.
Dr. Joanne Keefe is a two- time graduate of Frontier Nursing University, earning her FNP and DNP in 2013 and 2014, respectively. She obtained her BSN from the University of Phoenix (1999) and Master’s in Public Health from the University of New Mexico (2005).
Dr. Keefe has been a faculty member at Frontier since 2015 and is currently an Assistant Professor in the DNP program. She is a recipient of the Frontier Student Choice Award for Teaching Excellence (2018) and was presented with a DAISY Award in 2020.
Dr. Keefe holds memberships in numerous nursing and health associations, including the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, the New Mexico Nurse Practitioner Council, the American Nurses Association, the National Organization for Nurse Practitioner Faculty, and the American Rural Health Association. She has also been an Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing peer evaluator since September 2024.
Active in her community, Dr. Keefe is the director of Catron County Cares, a non- profit organization intent on obtaining grant funding to improve healthcare in Catron County in New Mexico.
Dr. Laura Manns-James is a two-time Frontier graduate. She first earned her certified nurse-midwifery (CNM) degree, then completed the post-master’s women’s health nurse practitioner program. She has been a faculty member at Frontier since 2004.
Dr. Manns-James holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto in women’s studies and cultural anthropology, and a Bachelor of Nursing from St Louis University’s accelerated option. In 2014, Dr. Manns-James was awarded the American College of Nurse-Midwives’ Foundation’s Fellowship for Graduate Education to support her doctoral work. In 2015, she received the March of Dimes graduate scholarship. She completed a PhD in nursing research in 2017.
Before becoming a nurse-midwife, Dr. Manns-James worked in maternity nursing and in child/adolescent mental health. Upon graduating from FNU, she worked as a CNM in a full-scope role in southwestern New Mexico.
Dr. Manns-James is an Associate Editor for the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Midwifery and Women’s Health (6th edition) text, published in January 2021, and a managing editor for the 7th edition, published in 2024.
She is a Fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives and was awarded Frontier’s Dr. Susan Stone Faculty Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She won an APEX Award for Publication Excellence. She is a two-time recipient of the Frontier Student Choice Award for Teaching Excellence (2015 and 2022).
Angela Mitchell, DNP, MSN, FNP-BC
An instructor at Frontier Nursing University since 2018, Dr. Angela Mitchell is currently the Course Coordinator of PC716: Advanced Physical Assessment. She has also served as Course Faculty and as the FNP Clinical Bound Team Lead.
Dr. Mitchell earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Denison University in 1998. She then attended Case Western Reserve University, earning a Certificate in Nursing in 2000. She started her nursing career at University Hospitals of Cleveland, working on a medical-surgical unit with an emphasis on infectious diseases. She continued her education at Case Western, completing her Master of Science in Nursing with a certificate as a Family Nurse Practitioner in 2002.
She started her advanced practice career at Frontier Nursing Service in 2002. She completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice in 2004. During her six years at Frontier, she assisted in opening a new rural health clinic, Kate Ireland Healthcare Center, developing school-based health clinics in Leslie and Clay counties and developing outpatient substance abuse treatment clinics. She also served as the Family Nurse Practitioner Faculty Practice Director from 2005 to 2008.
Dr. Mitchell joined Mecklenburg Medical Group: Gastroenterology from 2008 until 2012, where she provided outpatient care. She returned to Kentucky in 2012 and joined the Department of Veterans Affairs in Lexington.
Throughout her career, Dr. Mitchell has been involved in conducting research, quality improvement with evidence-based practice, serving as a preceptor, and teaching.
Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).