Faculty

Dr. Horton-Deutsch is currently the Director of the University of San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Partnership. She has led in academic and practice settings for 35 years as an advanced practice psychiatric/mental health nurse, teacher/practitioner, consultant, program director, caring science endowed chair, coach, and academic/practice partnership director. Through her academic and practice career, she has contributed to evidence-informed knowledge development to ensure safety and quality...

For the past 30 plus years, Dr. Mortell has worked in varied nursing settings, which include medical-surgical nursing, community health, oncology, and psychiatry; currently, she serves as an associate professor and the current director of the Online RN-MSN program at USF.

Her courses include: Ethics and Health Care Policy, Community Health Nursing, Transitions to Graduate Education and Scholarly Writing, Assessment Across the Lifespan, Advanced Pathophysiology and Pharmacology, Informatics...

Amanda Burke-Aaronson teaches in the Bachelor’s and Master’s in nursing programs. Her focus is women’s health, obstetric and neonatal nursing. Her professional experience is as a mother-baby nurse (postpartum and well-baby) as well as a newborn intensive care nurse. She is a volunteer birth doula – a non-medical labor and birth support person – as well. She has a side focus on advocating for, and striving to bring appropriate gender-affirming healthcare for transgender people, especially in our...

Lisa Brozda shares her passion for obstetrical nursing, teaching all areas of OB, including theory, OB simulation lab, and clinical lab. She has worked for decades as a staff nursing in all areas of OB (antepartum, intrapartum, postpartum, and neonatal intensive care), later transitioning to practice as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for labor/delivery and postpartum.

Dr. Cathy Coleman’s professional career and her passion for nursing and education includes decades of experience across multiple clinical settings and organizations as a nurse, consultant, and volunteer. Most of her career focused on oncology; she specialized in comprehensive breast center development and quality/performance improvement, spending years as a consultant for clients that include a medical device startup. After ten years with a CMS-funded Quality Improvement Organization in San...

Mary Lou De Natale has expertise in community mental health and telehealth case management with the underserved in the community and their partners / families. For the past twenty nine years, she has been involved in the bachelors, masters, and DNP programs (committee member of doctoral dissertations in the School of Education and School of Nursing and Health Professions - DNP projects). Her professional and personal mission, clinical practice, and research revolve around health care advocacy...

Dr. Deepika Goyal is a nurse educator, researcher, and clinician who brings 16 years of experience with her to USFCA. She teaches courses in the Doctor of Nursing Practice and Master’s nursing programs, helping to prepare the next generation of family nurse practitioners. Dr. Goyal’s research focuses on maternal mental health among Asian American women, which is reflected in her publications over the past 18 years. Dr. Goyal’s research was among the first to highlight maternal mental health...

Dr. John Hurley loves to teach and has been teaching in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program at USF for over eight years. He has thirty-seven years of experience as a clinical nurse, fifteen as nursing staff development and eight years of pediatric simulation teaching experience. He created and implemented a program for developing, nurturing, and sustaining the interior life of the nurse.

Alicia Kletter recently completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice here at the University of San Francisco with emphasis as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Her professional background includes 22 years as a nurse and family nurse practitioner with much of her career spent working with substance use disorders including methadone and buprenorphine maintenance. She further specialized within this field when she was the director of the City of San Francisco’s perinatal opioid use...

Professor Knapp has over ten years of experience working as a registered nurse in multiple community hospitals and large teaching facilities. She's had the opportunity to work as a Registered Nurse in the intensive care unit, emergency department, medical telemetry and observation units as well as a sepsis coordinator for two community hospitals.

She has an interest in medication-assisted therapy for opioid use disorder, and her DNP project centered on the development and implementation of...

Dr. Jo Loomis is a Family Nurse Practitioner and an Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco School of Nursing and Health Professions. Dr. Loomis received her DNP from the University of Minnesota and has maintained certifications in the women’s health areas of lactation and menopause as well as certification as a Simulation Healthcare Educator (CHSE).

Dr. Loomis has spent the last 10 years developing expertise in the use of simulation as a teaching modality to undergraduate and...

As a tenured Professor, Dr. Nosek teaches the maternity and epidemiology courses for the MSN program, and health behavior theory and communication, maternal child health elective, and applied practice experience courses for the MPH program. Previously, she has taught cultural & linguistic preparation for healthcare, nursing research, introduction to public health, and immersion courses to Colombia and Cuba.

Her research involves both quantitative and qualitative methodologies spanning broadly...

Dr Nancy Selix is an international speaker, researcher, and publisher author on the topics of maternal mental health, transgender care, and women's health. She is passionate about these areas of healthcare and has numerous publications, podium presentations, webinars, and research projects on these topics.

Dr Selix teaches healthcare policy and ethics and scholarly writing in the School of Nursing and Health Professions for doctoral students. Additionally, she has a thriving clinical practice...

Ms. Ambrose has been working in the Health Care Industry for over 40 years. She began her career in Nursing at San Francisco General Hospital working in the Trauma ICU. Ms. Ambrose worked for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California and Portland Oregon where she had the privilege of assisting with the opening of 3 Kaiser Acute Care Facilities while in the role of Administrative and Nursing Operations Director. She served as VP and Chief Nursing Officer/COO for Dignity Health and CommonSpirit...

Dr. Beamish was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, played basketball in high school, and went on to earn a basketball scholarship to play basketball in college. After college, Dr. Beamish worked in high tech, but like many during the dot-com bust, returned to college a second time to pursue a career in nursing.

Dr. Beamish worked as a research associate and department secretary before later earning a masters in nursing at USF in the ME-MSN program. While working as a nurse in a...

Elena Capella is an experienced educator who teaches leadership, health care quality, and regulatory compliance. Dr. Capella enjoys working with health care professionals who are completing their graduate degrees in nursing. Her doctoral research focuses on the leadership challenges faced by physicians transitioning from independent clinicians to health care system administrators and how these leaders support the improvement of clinical services.

Dr. Capella has worked as a consultant on...

Dr. Lake has 10 years of experience in clinical practice. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree with a Minor in Biology from Gettysburg College, a Master's of Science in Nursing, Family Nurse Practitioner Specialty, and Diabetes Care Concentration from Yale School of Nursing, and Doctor of Nursing Practice, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Specialty, and Master's of Public Health from the University of San Francisco. She is board certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner through the...

Professor Mallory Manuel, MSN, RN, CEN, teaches in the Master's Entry - Master of Science in Nursing program and currently maintains her nursing skills at the bedside working in an emergency department here in San Francisco. She primarily teaches in the first semester of the program, leading the Fundamentals clinical and lab experiences.

Professor Manuel brings vast experience from emergency departments across the country, including trauma centers of all levels, STEMI receiving centers...

Krystie Matthews has almost a decade of experience in various healthcare settings. Dr. Matthews is devoted to quality improvement in healthcare through her various roles in the community. Her area of interests are improving nursing and healthcare work culture and quality improvement. She is committed to the development of strong graduating nurses, that will bring excitement and fresh perspectives to healthy nursing environments.

Professor Patterson has 45 years of nursing experience, including in multiple leadership roles in outpatient and inpatient settings, and notably served as president of the American Association for Men in Nursing from 2014-2016. He received a nursing diploma from St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing in San Francisco, a BSN from CSU Dominguez Hill, an MSN from San Francisco State University, and a doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) from the University of San Francisco. He has a passion for local...

Diane Santiago is a Bay Area native but lived in Houston, Texas for seven years. There she worked at a busy 700 bed hospital and got her masters degree. She has over eight years of ICU nurse experience and is currently an ICU supervisor. She’s excited to teach and help you build your nursing career. She is passionate about building professional growth and is inspired by the opportunity for lifelong learning in nursing.

In her free time she enjoys getting nursing certifications, going back to...

Professor Schacke has been working as a registered nurse under the women's and children's umbrella throughout her career. She is passionate about the field of pediatrics and maternal-child nursing. Additionally, she has spent a substantial amount of time in clinical research.

Francine Serafin-Dickson has extensive experience as a healthcare administrator, educator, and consultant. Dr. Serafin-Dickson has taught since 2009 at USF in the MPA, BPA, BSHS, DNP, and MSN programs. Francine also serves as a consultant to endeavors focusing on older adult needs and caregiver issues.  In addition, she served as an intern for the Health Care Financing Administration (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and in a congressional office working on entitlements in Washington...

Jeremy Yves Vergara has 23 years of nursing experience in adult critical care, pediatric and adult neurology, peri-operative practice, and hospital and ambulatory leadership. Jeremy is a doctoral prepared nurse with specialization in healthcare systems leadership. He is fueled by a vision to improve clinical practice and processes and accomplished in determining the most optimal operational practices — achieving objectives to improve organizational and patient outcomes through structural...

Rebecca Wong has been a mathematics and statistics educator for over twenty-five years.  She is active in providing professional development in statistics and pedagogy, particularly for educators at the two-year college level.  Currently she serves on several national statistics education committees and coordinates the national DataFest competition for two-year colleges. A third-generation San Franciscan, she is excited for the opportunity to be part of the USF community.

Dr. Robin Buccheri is a Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor at the University of San Francisco (USF) in San Francisco. In 2010, she was admitted as a fellow to the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Buccheri has published over twenty-five articles in scholarly journals and is on the Editorial Board for Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services. She has received the School of Nursing & Health Professions Teaching Award, the University of San Francisco Research Award, and twice...