Associate Professor/Co-Director
Thomas Jefferson University
Philadelphia, PA
Dr. Elizabeth Speakman is Co-Director of the Jefferson Interprofessional Education Center and an Associate Professor in the Jefferson School of Nursing at Thomas Jefferson University. Prior to that Dr Speakman was Associate Dean of Student Affair and Assistant Dean of the RN-BSN program in the Jefferson School of Nursing. Dr Speakman is a Fellow in the Academy of Nursing Education and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow. Dr. Speakman has been a nurse educator for 29 years and serves as a curriculum expert and consultant with over 80 national presentations. She served two- three year terms as a Board of Governor for the National League for Nursing and most recently was elected to the NLN Strategic Planning Committee. In 2014, Dr Speakman was elected as a Distinguished Practitioner and Fellow in the National Academies of Practice.
Dr. Speakman has authored the book Body Fluids and Electrolytes: Program Presentation and has published and been a contributor author in numerous text books most notably Potter & Perry’s Fundamentals and Basic Nursing and Achieving Excellence in Nursing Education. Dr. Speakman has been featured in articles in Advance in Nursing, Nursing Health Care Perspective, Metro, Working Nurse, Journal of Change, in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Publication Push for Interprofessional Education Picks Up Steam and in the recent 2013 Institute of Medicine Interprofessional education for collaboration: Learning how to improve health from interprofessional models across the continuum of education to practice: Workshop summary. Dr Speakman serves as a Co-Editor of the Interprofessional Education and Care Newsletter, serves on the Editorial Board of the Population Health Matters Newsletter and Modern Education Review, and a member of the review panel in the peer reviewed journals, Nursing Education Perspectives and Journal of Nursing Education.
Dr. Speakman’s research area is in adult higher education, specifically retention and intervention strategies and interprofessional education and collaborative practice. Dr. Speakman is the Principle Investigator on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, New Careers in Nursing grant which has received $430,000 funding for scholarships for second degree nursing students enrolled in the one year FACT program. Dr. Speakman’s practice settings include critical care, post anesthesia care unit, emergency room and community health nursing and was invited to serve as nurse in residence at a marine biology camp in the Florida Keys. Dr. Speakman has served on various committees within the School or Nursing and the University and was chosen to be Johnson and Johnson Faculty Mentor, Jonas Foundation faculty mentor. Dr. Speakman received the Dean’s Achievement Award for excellence in teaching, research and service in 2002 and in 2006 was recognized by the Cherry Hill Township for distinguish service after successfully resuscitating a swimmer and creating an annual lifeguard refresher program. In 2014, Dr Speakman was awarded the Louise McManus Medal for Distinguish Service to Nursing Education and inducted into the Teachers College, Columbia University Nursing Hall of Fame for her Extraordinary Contribution to Nursing and Health Care.
Dr. Speakman received a BS in Nursing from Wagner College, New York in 1980 and her Master Degree (1985) and Doctorate in Education (2000) from Columbia University and a Certificate in Healthcare Education from the Harvard-Macy Institute at Harvard University.