SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES Linda Lawson, DNP, RN, NEA-BC Dr. Linda Lawson is the Chief Nursing Officer for The Hospitals of Providence Transmountain Campus in El Paso, Texas. Dr. Lawson is a 2012 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow and a member of the action learning team from the RWJF ENF 2012 cohort known as the PACERS. She is a member of the Texas Team, an action coalition of the initiative on the future of nursing to assist in actualizing the Initiative on the Future of Nursing (IFN) goals by 2020. Lawson is chair of Senator Jose Rodriguez's health care subcommittee. Lawson is a clinical assistant professor at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso Gayle Grieve Hunt School of Nursing. Lawson earned her undergraduate degree in nursing from the University of Texas at El Paso. She earned her Master's Degree in Nursing from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and her Doctor of Nurse Practice in Executive Nurse Leadership from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas. Tammy Cupit, Ph.D., RN-BC Dr. Tammy Cupit currently serves as the Director of Nursing Science and Innovation for UTMB Health. She also serves on the Institutional Review Board, the Institutional Ethics Committee, and oversees nursing peer review for the entire UTMB Health System. Cupit holds an adjunct Associate Professor appointment with the UTMB School of Nursing. Her nursing background is in emergency medicine and behavioral health. Cupit is an avid nurse scientist and has been both a principal and co-investigator in numerous single and multi-site nursing research studies. Her research has resulted in national and international presentations as well as publications. Notably, her publications include a policy brief and the first co-authored study published in the United States examining front-line operational failures detected by medical-surgical nurses during their usual work shifts. Cupit remains active in the community through her role as Chair of the Texas Medical Center’s Nursing Science Research Collaborative. She also is committed to volunteer work with CASA, CPS, and local schools where she collaborates with nursing colleagues to provide family life and sexual health education. Patricia Lewis, Ph.D., RN, NEA-BC, CNML Dr. Patricia “Tricia” Lewis has been a nurse for over 40 years. Lewis is a Nursing Director at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital. She has a passion for healthy work environments. This has led to her participating in several hospitals’ achievements of Pathway to Excellence, Magnet, and Beacon ICUs. Her dissertation research studied workplace incivility and the impact of productivity and other organizational factors. This research led to a publication in JONA, January 2011. She has spoken on this topic at local, state, national, and international conferences. Carson Easley, MS, RN Carson Easley is the Chief Nursing Officer for The Harris Center for Mental Health and Intellectual Developmental Disabilities (IDD) in Houston, Texas. The Harris Center provides mental health and intellectual/ developmental disabilities services to residents of Harris County in community settings and is the largest Center of its kind in Texas. Easley received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and earned her Master of Science Degree in Nursing from Texas Woman’s University. Easley is a member of the Texas Team Advancing Health through Nursing (Texas Team) which is responsible for formulating and implementing the Texas response to the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Report on the Future of Nursing published in 2010. Easley was appointed to the Advancing Education Team. It should be recognized that one of the initiatives of the Texas Team is to prepare nurses for board appointments. Notably, Ms. Easley is a member of the Inaugural Class of the Nurses on Boards (NOB) training. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards for Chamberlain College of Nursing and Houston Community College Associate Degree Nursing Program where she serves as Chair. For the Texas Board of Nursing she is a member of the Nursing Practice Advisory Committee and for the Texas Nurses Association she is a member of the Policy Council and chairs the Mental Health Work Group. In 2009, she was recognized by the Texas Nurses Association-District 9 Chapter as one of the 20 Outstanding Nurses in the Houston Area. In 2010, she was the regional winner of the Nursing Excellence Award for the South Central Region in the area of Advancing and Leading the Profession sponsored by the Nurse Week magazine.