Keynote Speaker

Claudia Beverly, PhD, RN, FAAN, is Director of the Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Nursing. She is the Associate Director of the $28.8 million Donald W. Reynolds Institute On Aging and Department of Geriatrics located on the UAMS campus. Dr. Beverly is Professor in the UAMS College of Nursing, the UAMS College of Medicine, and Associate Professor in the UAMS College of Public Health and has been a faculty member of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Nursing since 1976. She also serves as Director of the Arkansas Aging Initiative, which includes a network of seven Centers on Aging statewide that provide improved care to older persons throughout Arkansas through quality geriatric healthcare and education. The Arkansas Aging Initiative receives $2,000,000 annually in funding from the Tobacco Settlement (Initiated Act One). Dr. Beverly is serving her fourth year as a member of the National Advisory Council for Nursing Education and Practice that advises the Division on Nursing in the Bureau of Health Professions in the Department of Health and Human Services. She is also a member of the National Commission to study the nursing workforce issue in long-term care, a project of the American Health Care Association. Dr. Beverly’s areas of specialty and research interests include geriatrics and community-based systems of healthcare and social service delivery. She has written several articles and has lectured extensively in the United States.