SCHOLAR DIRECTORY

Amanda Simonton is a third year doctoral student who received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (’13) from the University of Texas at Austin (UT). She is also a first year Master’s student in the Psych/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program. Her research area of interest is mental health promotion with an emphasis on reducing substance abuse and improving recovery from addictive substances. Her long-term professional goal is to become a tenure-track faculty member within a top-tier research-oriented nursing school. She wants to contribute to leading-edge research, health care policy changes, and the education of an expanding population of graduate-trained nurses. Amanda currently works as a teaching assistant/graduate research assistant at the UT School of Nursing and is a Registered Nurse in the Seton Psychiatric Emergency Department at University Medical Center Brackenridge Hospital. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau, the Southern Nursing Research Society, and the Association of Nurses in Graduate School. Last year, she was the Doctoral Student Representative for the Association of Nurses in Graduate School. During her time as a graduate student at UT, Amanda has maintained a 4.0 GPA and has received multiple fellowships and scholarships through the university. She plans to use the experiences gained through the Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program to become an effective nurse leader, educator, clinician and researcher in healthcare.