Dr. Bernadette Melnyk is Vice President for Health Promotion and Chief Wellness Officer at The Ohio State University 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 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 in evidence-based practice (EBP), child and adolescent mental health, clinician well-being, and intervention research as well as her innovative approaches to population health and well-being. Bern 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 globe.

She is editor of 7 books focused on child and adolescent mental health, EBP, intervention research, evidence-based health assessment, and leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. Dr. Melnyk has more than 540 publications and over $36 million dollars of sponsored funding from NIH, AHRQ and foundations as a principal investigator. She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing that has recognized her three times as an Edge Runner (twice for her evidence-based COPE programs), the National Academies of Practice, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Dr. Melnyk served a four-year term on the United States Preventive Services Task Force, the National Advisory Council for the National Institute for Nursing Research, 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 for 12 years where she led the college to top 10 U.S. News & World Report and NIH funding rankings.

Dr. Melnyk has served as an elected board member and vice chair of the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and received an honorary doctor of science degree from the State University of New York in 2022. She is editor-in-chief of the top ranked journal Worldviews on Evidence-based Nursing. Dr. Melnyk was appointed to the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-being and Resilience in 2017 on which she still continues to serve and is the founder and current president of the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities.

She received her bachelor of science in nursing from West Virginia University, her master of science in nursing degree and pediatric nurse practitioner education from the University of Pittsburgh, and her PhD in clinical research and psychiatric nurse practitioner education from the University of Rochester.

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