Faculty Profile

I am a board certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who is also certified in Perinatal Mental Health. I have worked in many different practice settings; including Community Mental Health (CMH), a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), and now private practice. I have been a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner since 2016. Nursing is my second career as I worked for many years as a Certified Pharmacy Technician before attending nursing school.

My first job as a registered nurse was working with the psychiatrists at Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services of St. Joseph County (now Pivotal) in the medication clinic. During this time, I developed a passion for working with individuals with mental health issues. I wanted to help decrease the time that it took from when people requested services to when they were able to see the provider for medication management services, so I continued my education and received by BSN from Spring Arbor University and my MSN from Wayne State University.

I worked for a little over a year seeing patients at CMH as a nurse practitioner and then for five years I worked at a Federally Qualified Health Center in Cass County providing mental health services within an integrated model of care. In addition toteaching and my role of Assistant Director of the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program for Spring Arbor University, I also see patients through Illume Wellness Group in Sturgis, Michigan. 

I have always enjoyed teaching and mentoring nurses, both in the classroom and in the clinical setting. Just as God placed me in a nursing setting that I would quickly discover was my passion, He created the opportunity for me to join SAU as an adjunct nursing faculty member for the newly developed PMHNP program. Having obtained my bachelor's degree from SAU, I had no doubt that teaching at SAU would be a good fit with my values and goals. With God’s grace and the support of many wonderful SAU staff and faculty, I’ve been blessed to transition to the role of Assistant Director for the PMHNP program track. It is a blessing to work at SAU and be able to combine both my faith and nursing into shaping our next generation of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioners.