Dr. Courtney Pitts, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, FAANP, Clinical Professor, serves as the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) program director. She brings with her more than a decade of experience in teaching, program leadership, and curriculum revision skills. Dr. Pitts has previously served in a specialty director role for seven years of a program that was ranked in the top five of master’s level nurse practitioner programs with three of the years being ranked #2. She is a nationally certified and actively practicing FNP with a clinical background in primary care and the management of patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Dr. Pitts currently serves as a member of the National League for Nursing’s public policy committee where she works with colleagues to update the organization’s public policy agenda. The committee also provides nurses and nurse educators tools and resources to help them learn and engage in the public policy process. She also serves as a member of the American Association of Nurse Practitioner’s Awards Committee that works to acknowledge the hard work of nurse practitioners and advocates of the NP profession who advocate tirelessly for the profession. Dr. Pitt is also an associate editor for the Journal for Nurse Practitioners. In 2021, she was appointed by the United States Secretary of Health to the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice. Dr. Pitts formerly served two elected terms on the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties’ (NONPF) Board of Directors.

2023 Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Award

2022-2023 American Association of Colleges of Nursing Elevating Leaders in Academic Nursing (AACN ELAN) fellow

2021 Tennessee 40 Under 40 Rising Star Nurse Leaders

2020 Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP)

2019 Jackson State University’s Women’s History Month Honoree