Dr. JoEllen “Ellen” Schimmels is the Interim Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Specialty Director and Clinical Professor at Emory University and Clinician and Trainer for Spring Health. Most recently, she was working in the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic at the New Mexico Veterans Health Administration and teaching in the PMHNP Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Previously she was the DNP Program Director at UNM and Program Director for the DNP PMHNP Program at Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, MD. With over 25 years of nursing experience, 23 years active duty in the Army with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, 18 years as a PMHNP; her scholarship includes PTSD and anxiety evidence-based therapies, tele-mental health care, trauma informed care, mental health policy, nursing curriculum development and competency-based education, military nursing, and individual and organizational well-being.  She is married to her handsome, intelligent husband and is the mother of two bright, enthusiastic children and stepmother to two amazing boys. She enjoys music, hiking, scuba diving, reading, anything with her dogs, swimming, scrapbooking, karaoke, and dancing.

• Tierney, M., Schimmels, J., Delaney, K., Mumba, M., Glymph, D., Handrup, C., & Phoenix, B. (2025). Policy priorities to improve access to specialty advanced practice nursing care for mental health and substance use problems: An AAN Manuscript. Nursing Outlook, 73(1), 1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.outlook.2024.10342.
• Schimmels, J. & Schneider, J. (2024). Trauma Informed Care for Nursing Action BSN Course. Journal of Nursing Education, 63(4), 233-240.  doi:10.3928/01484834-20240207-06
• Schimmels, J., Schneider, J., Bucher, K., & Coty, M. B. (2024). Stoicism and Cognitive Strategies for Nursing Professional Development. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 5. doi: 10.3928/00220124-20240328-02
• Hauenstein, E. J.  & Schimmels, J. (2024). Providing Gender Sensitive and Responsive Trauma-Informed Psychiatric Nursing Care. How Hard Can It Be?, Issues in Mental Health Nursing. doi: 10.1080/01612840.2024.2310663
• Beeber, L., Delaney, K. R., Hauenstein, E., Iennaco, J., Schimmels, J., Sharp, D., & Shattell, M. (2023, August 23). Five urgent steps to address violence against nurses in the workplace. Health Affairs Forefront. https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20230822.174151
• Finnell, D. S., Schimmels, J., & Tierney, M. (2023). Enhancing engagement between legislators and nursing to increase buprenorphine access. Nursing Outlook, 71(4), 102004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2023.102004
• Schimmels, J., Groh, C., Neft, M., Wocial, L., Young, C., & Davidson, J. E. (2023). American Academy of Nursing expert panel consensus statement on leveraging equity in policy to improve recognition and treatment of mental health, substance use disorders, and nurse suicide. Nursing Outlook, 71(3), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2023.101970.
• National Quality Forum. (2022, January). Issue Brief: National Quality Forum Action Team on Virtual Healthcare Quality. Workgroup members: Shook, S., Schwimmer, L., Buelsing Sowards, D., …Schimmels, J., Heyworth, L., & Kahn, D.  https://www.qualityforum.org/NQF_Action_Team_-_Virtual_Healthcare_Quality.aspx
• Schimmels, J., Bajjani-Gebara, J., Owen, R., Lewis, T., & Wallace, E. (2021). The service theories and healing leadership of Florence Nightingale and Hildegard Peplau: Their central importance for military psychiatric nurse practitioner education. Journal of Health and Human Behavior, 7(1), 40-54. https://jhhe.sempervifoundation.org/pdfs/JHHE%20V7n1%20Spring2021_LowResPagesFINAL.pdf
• Schimmels, J., & Cunningham, L. (2021).  How do we move forward with trauma-informed care?  Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 17(4),405-411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2020.12.005
• Owen, R. D., & Schimmels, J. (2020). Leadership after a crisis: The application of Psychological First Aid. Journal of Nursing Administration, 50(10); 505-507. doi: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000000925. PMID: 32925662.
• Morganstein, J. C., West, J. C., Schimmels, J., & Benedek, D. M. (2020, April 27) Response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic: What will it take? Psychiatry, 1-6. doi: 10.1080/00332747.2020.1750928

Teaching learners to be vulnerable and meet patients in their own vulnerable places impacts my teaching philosophy significantly. I’m very much influenced by the educational psychology constructivism principles of Jean Piaget and Hildegard Peplau’s nursing theory. Learners combine what they have learned with new information, where they make sense of learning and apply it to their world. Information is consolidated into ideas to learn new information. The interaction between nurse and patient leads to growth and learning involves promoting growth in others through teaching and interacting. Learning is an active and interactive process, I believe involving learners in planning and evaluating their learning, explaining why they need to learn something, and assessing their readiness for learning. Therefore, teaching should be more practical and problem centered. When people want to learn, and are motivated to learn, their learning improves. Teaching critical thinking is necessary for clinicians, and is more than a passive transfer of information, but rather an active process of engagement with learners, self-assessment, interpersonal and interprofessional reflection. Learning should be safe, and learners should feel comfortable trying, even if it means not immediately being successful. Fostering such an environment requires sensitivity to individual differences and goals to ensure different levels meet objectives for coursework. I believe it is important to have specific, thoughtful objectives for course content and evaluations to ensure students understand where they are expected to go with their learning.

My scholarship includes study interventions for clinicians, particularly mental health clinician well-being including interventions on suicidality, mental health disorders, burnout, morale injury, and substance use disorders. My work with workplace well-being and healthy work environments in healthcare using a trauma informed care framework, and additionally focus on mental health providers and nurses. I want to expand this to research virtual workplace well-being and retention to develop best practices for virtual mental health clinicians and their well-being. I want to continue working with how we train mental health clinicians and how we mentor and guide them throughout their careers, how we encourage them to be what our patients need, and to keep them working purposefully to be able to connect with their passion for the profession. I use my research to influence national policy for workplace and virtual workplace well-being.  My work has impacted national mental health by enhancing the well-being of patients, families and the healthcare workforce while building an interdisciplinary expert network to create safer healthcare environments. I’ve developed and led health policy teams in creating innovative evidence-based standards of practice, with contributions to the field that have changed the way patients are cared for and how nurses and nurse practitioners are trained and utilized in hospital and other settings.

• 2020
  Legion of Merit 
• 2020      
  Award for Excellence in Leadership – APRN  Psychiatric Nurses Assoc (APNA)
• 2020      
  Daisy Award  The Daisy Foundation
• 2020          
  Dean’s Award for Excellence in Scholarly Practice
  Uniformed Services University
• 2020      
  ANCA Military Nursing Practice Award Army Nurse Corps Association
• 2019          
  Fellow  American Academy of Nursing
• 2019          
  Coin Design for Brigadier General Jack Davis Coin
  Office of the Chief, Army Nurse Corps
• 2019          
  Adult Psychiatric-Mental Health NP of the Year 
  American Nurses Credentialing Center
• 2018      
  Order of Military Medical Merit  US Army Public Health Services
• 2016         
  “A” Proficiency Identifier US Army, Falls Church, VA 
• 2012        
  Bronze Star Medal
• 2009 Bronze Star Medal