At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented and diverse community of students, alumni, faculty, staff, Couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.
Dr. Teresa Dodge
Frontier graduates Teresa Dodge and Nicole Serrano have made an impact on their communities not just through their individual accomplishments, but also through their shared journey. Their parallel careers, experiences at FNU, and their passion for healthcare and education have helped shape not only their professional and personal lives, but also the quality of care in their communities.
For Dr. Dodge and Dr. Serrano, their friendship and professional partnership began early in their healthcare careers. Meeting while both working as monitor techs at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, New York, they started bonding while working night shifts together in the hospital’s Emergency Department.
“She was absolutely brilliant, and we really pushed each other to be better,” Dr. Dodge said.
“We worked really well together professionally and always challenged each other to be the best provider,” Dr. Serrano added.
In this spirit, they were both driven by a vision of providing top-tier healthcare in underserved communities, which naturally led them to pursue further education and specialization. And for both of them, FNU was the avenue to fulfill these ambitions.
Dr. Serrano graduated with her MSN after completing Frontier’s Family Nurse Practitioner specialty track in 2017 and her DNP in 2018, while Dr. Dodge earned her MSN as a Family Nurse Practitioner in 2021 and DNP in 2023. Dr. Dodge said Dr. Serrano was a major inspiration for her to pursue her education through FNU.
“I picked FNU for many reasons, but a big one was from Nicole’s experience,” Dr. Dodge said. “While in school, Nicole raved about FNU’s program.”
The combination of FNU’s academic rigor and practical application empowered both Dr. Dodge and Dr. Serrano to grow not only as clinicians but also as leaders in their respective fields. They developed a more holistic approach to patient care, recognizing the importance of addressing social determinants of health, patient education, and community resources in delivering comprehensive care.
“It helped me understand my position in the health system, not just my work as an individual provider,” Dr. Serrano said. “I can see why process change is necessary and the factors that contribute to it. It helped me see more sides to healthcare than the patient and the provider and the different levels of influence we have to work within, which in turn helps us serve patients in more effective ways by changing those larger influences.”
Dr. Nicole Serrano
The expertise they gained at FNU has been instrumental in shaping their career paths. Dr. Dodge now serves the community of Cortland County, New York, specializing in pediatric urgent care, while Dr. Serrano applies her skills as a cardiac surgery night shift nurse at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, New York.
Dodge and Serrano’s passion for education didn’t stop with their own degrees. Both have become advocates for continued professional development, not just for themselves but for their peers and future generations of healthcare providers. Their commitment to education has led them to co-present at notable healthcare conferences, including the Nurse Practitioner Associations of New York State Conference in 2023 and the Emergency Nursing Association’s National Conference this year. Together, they have addressed critical issues such as diagnosing acute aortic aneurysms.
“I think we collaborate so well because we both nerd out over healthcare,” Dr. Serrano said. “We both get really excited about learning and love sharing our knowledge.”
As someone who regularly presents at professional conferences, Dr. Dodge said it has been rewarding to now work with her long-time friend and colleague on presentations.
“I just love working with Nicole,” she said. “We are different specialties and at different health systems, so, sadly, we don’t get to work together. Doing this presentation was like going back in time to the ED where we worked as nurses together.”
Thank you, Teresa and Nicole, for exemplifying FNU’s culture of caring and for being a testament to the power of friendship, education, and a shared vision.
To read more graduate stories, visit the FNU Alumni stories page.
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).