Donna Emanuele, DNP, RN, FNP-BC, ENP-C, CNS, FAANP
Dr. Emanuele is an Associate Professor of Nursing and DNP & ENP Director for the College of Graduate Nursing at Western University of Health Sciences. She has practiced within the nursing profession and assumed many leadership, clinical educator, management, and administrative roles extending over a 30-year nursing career. She graduated with an associate of science degree in nursing from Middlesex Community College in Bedford, Massachusetts in 1984 and completed her baccalaureate of science degree in nursing from Cal-State, Los Angeles in 1989. She earned her advanced degrees in nursing from the University of California, Los Angeles as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Critical Care in 1993 and Family Nurse Practitioner in 1995. She has practiced in Primary Care-Family Practice and actively practices as a nationally certified family nurse practitioner in Emergency Medicine as a specialty care setting in the Emergency Department at Verdugo Hills Hospital-USC in Glendale, CA. Dr. Emanuele earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Touro University Nevada in 2009. Her practice-based dissertation research investigated, “Nurse Practitioners as Primary Care Providers: Transforming the Political and Regulatory Practice Landscape to Improve Access to Health Care through Evidence-Based Research”. She is an active member of several professional state and national nursing organizations and engaged in committee work to advance the practice of nursing, with special interest in health policy and practice. She completed terms as the Health Policy Chair for the California Association for Nurse Practitioners in 2010-2012; President-Elect during 2012-2014; President 2014-2016, and Immediate Past President during 2016 to 2018, and is presently a Past President of CANP. She has served as an active member of the state CANP Health Policy and Practice, Education and Editorial Committee from 2010-2020. Dr. Emanuele has co-authored the 2009 CANP Position Statement, “Affirming the Competency, Quality and Continuing Role of Nurse Practitioners in the Primary and Specialty Care Settings”; presented at state and national nursing conferences; and participated in research studies. She is a fellow of American Association of Nurse Practitioners and a Health Policy Fellow with Ohio University, Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine and was the first DNP selected to join this team of health profession scholars. She continues to pursue nursing’s agenda to reduce barriers to advance nursing practice to improve access to health care and received the 1998 AANP Nurse Practitioner State Award of Excellence and 2015 AANP Advocate State Award for Excellence for California. She is the Region-9 PAC trustee for AANP, former board member of Californians Allied for Patient Protection (CAPP) and PAC member (2012-2020) and holds many active professional nursing memberships, including Sigma, ANA, ANA-c, ACNL, CANP, AACN, NONPF, and AAENP.
