Meet the NTI Work Group

The NTI Work Group fulfills a vital role in reviewing abstracts and recommending program topics and sessions for NTI and API. During the conference, these volunteers serve as valuable resources for participants.

Each day, NTI News will introduce you to different members of this group. Please stop by the Information Center in the Resource Center to chat with them and thank them for their contributions.

Members of the 2008 NTI Work Group are:
Mary Frances D. Pate (chair), Janice M. Wojcik (board liaison), Michele L. Avila-Emerson, Phyllis Cerone, Louise R. Cook, Gerard “Jerry” B. Hannibal, Donna Kruse, Barbara B. Pope, Susan Ward and Mary Zellinger.

Avila-Emerson first joined AACN and her local chapter while she was in undergraduate nursing school at California State University, Fresno and attended her first NTI five months after graduation. She was a member at large and secretary for the San Joaquin Valley Chapter in 2003 and 2004. She has served at the national AACN level as a membership ambassador, CCRN item writer, Award Review Panel member and now as a member of the NTI Work Group.

She obtained her CCRN in 2004, earned her master’s degree in pediatric critical care from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing in 2005 as well as her CCNS and CPNP-AC. She currently works as a critical care nurse practitioner in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Calif. Although Avila-Emerson has served her profession in many ways, she is proudest of her work in Kathmandu, Nepal where she is the program coordinator for a team working to open a pediatric and neonatal intensive care unit at a local hospital.

Cook is an associate professor of clinical nursing at the University of Akron in Ohio, where she teaches a critical care nursing course for senior BSN students. She has more than 25 years’ experience in critical care as a staff nurse, charge nurse, critical care CNS and educator. She is certified as a CCRN and has taught several CCRN review courses in the Akron area. In addition, she is an American Heart Association ACLS instructor and an AMA Basic Disaster Life Support (BDLS) provider.

A member of AACN since 1988, Cook is currently the treasurer of the Greater Akron Area Chapter. She has served several terms on the chapter’s Board of Directors. In addition to the 2008 NTI Work Group, she is a member of the Continuing Education Article Review Panel. She previously served on the Chapter/Member Awards and Scholarship review panels and the Faculty Advisory Team. She volunteered for the Exam Writers Work Group as a Cardiac Medicine Certification exam item writer. A proponent of evidence-based practice, she is also a peer reviewer for several critical care nursing journals.

Cook received a diploma in nursing from the Akron City Hospital School of Nursing, a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University.

Zellinger is the clinical nurse specialist for Cardiovascular and Critical Care Services at Emory University Hospital and a collaborative faculty member of the Emory University School of Nursing in Atlanta, Ga. At Emory, Zellinger has been a clinical instructor and was the center’s first heart transplant coordinator. As a CNS, she works in the Cardiovascular ICU and Cardiovascular Telemetry Unit.

She received her BSN from Duke University and her MN in adult health/critical care and post master’s nurse practitioner degree from Emory University. Zellinger has presented at numerous conferences including NTI. She also received the AACN/AJN Wyeth-Ayerst Mentor Award for publication. She served on the AACN Advanced Practice Task Force and the Program Advisory Committee. She has been a reviewer of national AACN awards applications and an item writer for the AACN Cardiac Surgery Certification (CSC) exam. In addition to chapters in several books, she has published articles in many journals including Heart and Lung, Issues in Critical Care Nursing and AJN. Zellinger has also been a reviewer for AACN publications.

On the chapter level, Zellinger was president of the Atlanta Chapter in 1993, and is currently president-elect. For the past five years she has been the chairperson for the Region VI AACN Symposium.