Clinical Professor
University of Minnesota
Eagan, MN
Linda Olson Keller, DNP, RN, FAAN, has been a clear, consistent voice for public health and public health nursing over the last three decades, serving in both public health and educational sectors. She is currently a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. She is the principal investigator for “A Culture of Excellence: Evidence-based Public Health Nursing”, a HRSA grant that is increasing the uptake of evidence in the practice of nurses in local health departments as well as translating evidence into practice guidelines. Linda conducted a national task analysis of public health nursing through project funded by the Association for State and Territorial Directors of Nursing through the Centers for Disease Control. She was selected by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) Board to serve as a Beta Test site visitor in 2010 and served on the team that conducted the first public health site visit in history. She was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 2007. Linda is currently Chair of the Quad Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations and the Immediate Past Chair of the Section of Public Health Nursing of the American Public Health Association.
Linda spent twenty years of her career in the Office of Public Health Practice at the Minnesota Department of Health. Her early efforts focused on population-based community assessment, program planning and evaluation for local health departments and she recently designed an innovative training on web-based population health assessment. She led the development of the “Intervention Wheel, “a model for population-based practice that is used nationally and internationally in teaching, management, and practice. In 2000, she partnered with the HRSA and the Centers for Disease Control to produce a series of national satellite broadcasts on public health practice that were viewed by thousands of public health professionals throughout the nation.
Linda is certified in Public Health and is also board certified as an Advanced Public Health Nurse. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from St. Olaf College and her Masters degree from the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health, and her Doctorate of Nursing Practice from the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. She is also a graduate of the Leadership in Public Policy Seminar from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her awards include a Distinguished Nurse of the Year from the March of Dimes, a Creative Achievement Award from the American Public Health Association, the International and National Pinnacle Award for Research Dissemination from Sigma Theta Tau International.