Acquaviva Named a Fellow of the National Academies of Practice
Kimberly D. Acquaviva, the Betty Norman Norris Professor of Nursing at UVA, has been named a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academies of Practice in social work.
Acquaviva—an expert on aging, interprofessional education, human sexuality, health policy, hospice, and palliative care—is a celebrated teacher, author, and mentor, and an internationally-recognized advocate for LGBTQ+ communities’ access to compassionate and equitable palliative and end-of-life care.
In 2019, Acquaviva and her late wife, hospice expert Kathy Brandt, drew national attention for documenting Brandt’s terminal illness and death on social media. Acquaviva’s book, LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care: A Practice Guide to Transforming Professional Practice (Harrington Park Press: 2017), received the American Journal of Nursing’s Book of the Year Award in the palliative care and hospice category.
Acquaviva spent the early years of her career as a healthcare social worker caring for hospice patients and their families . Transitioning into academia, Acquaviva—who earned a PhD in human sexuality—was drawn to interdisciplinary research and policy work. In 2013 she was appointed by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services Secretary to serve a three-year term on the National Advisory Council on Aging, the Federal Advisory Council for the National Institute on Aging within the National Institutes of Health. As the former Chair of Friends of the National Institute on Aging, she provided testimony on National Institutes of Health Appropriations to both the House and Senate Subcommittees on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.
She taught at the George Washington University for more than 15 years, arriving at UVA School of Nursing in 2019 where she teaches health policy to a mix of undergraduate and graduate students and is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Interprofessional Collaborations.
The National Academies of Practice is an interprofessional community of scholars that advises government on healthcare issues. Its fellows are elected by their peers from across 14 different health professions to join the only interprofessional group of healthcare practitioners and scholars dedicated to the support of affordable, accessible, coordinated quality care for all.
The National Academy of Practice’s class of 2021 fellows will be inducted in March 2021 at the group’s annual conference. Acquaviva’s new fellowship marks the School of Nursing’s 46th national academy fellowship.
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