Dr. Linda Lewandowski earned her baccalaureate degree in nursing from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a master’s degree in pediatric critical care nursing from the University of California, San Francisco, and an additional master’s degree and a Ph.D., both in clinical psychology, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University before attaining licensure as a clinical psychologist. Dr. Lewandowski currently serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor in the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College of Nursing. This position includes serving as the Graduate Program Director and responsibility for all academic programs.
Prior to this post (2003-2012), she held an Endowed Professorship at the Wayne State University College of Nursing as a tenured Associate Professor, with a joint appointment at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. In her hospital position, she served in a top leadership role focused on professional development, quality enhancement and research. She also led teams focused on evidence-based practice change. Additionally, she served in a concurrent administrative role as Assistant Dean of Family, Community, and Mental Health (2007-2012). In this role, she focused much attention of faculty development, successfully developed new curriculum roles and directions (for which she obtained competitive grant funding) and implemented a distance-learning network throughout the State of Michigan.
Prior to this (1993-2002), she was a faculty member (Assistant/Associate Professor) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing where she was also an Associate Director of the Center for Youth Violence Prevention and Associate Editor of IntelliHealth a (then) new online health resource site. While at Hopkins, she was chosen to participate in a Leadership Development program aimed at developing promising leaders in the University Community.
From 1981-1993, she held a joint appointment as an Assistant Professor at the Yale University School of Nursing and a Pediatric Clinical Nurse Specialist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Prior to this post, she served in various clinical and hospital educator roles.
In sum, she has over 38 years of nursing experience in various clinical and leadership roles including staff nurse, charge nurse, clinical nurse specialist, staff development educator, university professor, academic administrator, and researcher as well as over 13 years of experience as a clinical psychologist. She has held numerous leadership roles on the national level including the presidency of the Society of Pediatric Nursing, posts on national Boards of professional groups and various national committees and task forces. She continues an active program of research focused on understanding and mitigating the effects of cumulative trauma (multiple traumatic life experiences and violence exposure) on children, adolescents, and adults. She is aFellow of the American Academy of Nursing.