AACN Certification Corporation Board
July 2023-June 2026
Carly Byrne, DNP, APRN, PCNS-BC, CCNS, CPN, CCRN-K, serves a three-year term as a director on the AACN Certification Corporation board of directors from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2026.
A member of AACN's Greater Portland Chapter, Byrne is a clinical nurse specialist (CNS) at Legacy Health in Portland, Oregon, and adjunct faculty for Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago. Her primary areas of focus are professional governance, professional practice, evidence-based practice (EBP) and implementation science. She also serves on Legacy Health's Institutional Review Board.
Her AACN volunteer activities include membership on the NTI Program Planning Committee (2023, 2022, 2017), serving as chair in 2023 and co-chair in 2022. She has been a Beacon Award reviewer and served on the certification exam committees for the pediatric CNS exam. Byrne has also given several presentations at AACN's National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition.
She is a member of the Oregon Nursing Research and Quality Consortium (active on the conference planning committee and course faculty for other courses offered throughout the year). She is also an EBP mentor with The Ohio State University's Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for Evidence-based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare, and a member of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists.
Byrne has received awards from the March of Dimes in the categories of Distinguished Nurse of the Year and APRN Nurse of the Year. She also received the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board’s CPN (Certified Pediatric Nurse) Certification Advocate Award.
She earned a doctor of nursing practice with a concentration in transformative leadership systems, and a Master of Science in Nursing, both from Rush University, Chicago, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from University of Alaska Anchorage.
Byrne adds, "I like to test my fear of heights by hiking/climbing tall mountains and going skydiving. I've run almost 100 half marathons, just finished my first marathon in 2022, and now my goal is to run an ultramarathon."