Mary Frances Pate, Director

AACN Certification Corporation Board July 2009 - June 2013

Mary Frances Pate, RN, DSN, CNS, serves a four-year term as a director on the AACN Certification Corporation board from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2013. She was secretary/treasurer in 2011-2012.

Associate professor at the University of Portland School of Nursing in Oregon, Pate previously taught at the University of Alabama (UA), Birmingham, School of Nursing, after previously working as assistant professor at the Oregon Health & Science University, School of Nursing in Portland. Pate was also an associate professor at the University of Alabama School of Nursing, Birmingham, from 2009 to 2011.

Before holding teaching roles at the graduate level, she was a clinical nurse specialist in the pediatric intensive care unit, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, from 2000 to 2005 and Children’s Hospital of Alabama, Birmingham, from 1993 to 2000.

A member of numerous AACN volunteer committees, she sat on the Healthy Work Environment Work Group in 2006-2007, National Teaching Institute Program Planning Committee in 2003-2004, chairing that same group in 2007-2008, and Board Advisory Team in 2001-2003.

She continues to serve on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed journal AACN Advanced Critical Care, a position she’s held since 2004.

A member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, Pate has earned several prestigious awards, including the Nurse Luminary Recognition Award from the American Nurses Association. Her published work includes nearly 20 articles in nursing literature, many about pediatric intensive care.

Pate earned Bachelor, Master and Doctor of Science in nursing degrees in 1982, 1987 and 1998 respectively from UA’s School of Nursing.

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