The School of Nursing welcomed Natalie Cooper to our faculty ranks in May.

Cooper is a dual board-certified adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner (AGACNP) and adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioner (AGPCNP). She has been in acute care clinical practice in the cardiothoracic intensive care unit (CTICU) at Yale New Haven Hospital since 2018. Prior to her role as an acute care nurse practitioner, she practiced in primary care in Greater Hartford. Cooper’s diverse nursing background includes comprehensive experience in emergency and trauma nursing, as well as oncology nursing in the early years of her career.

As a clinical educator, Cooper has served as adjunct faculty at both the Quinnipiac School of Nursing and the Yale School of Nursing. She serves as a preceptor for acute care graduate students, training in the critical care environment, particularly in the CTICU. Her professional interests include cardiac surgery, evidence-based practice in critical care, resuscitation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), advanced practice provider leadership, research and service to the nursing shared governance practice excellence council.

Cooper holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice and certification as an adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioner from Quinnipiac. She earned a post-master’s degree in acute care from the University of Pennsylvania and completed her undergraduate education at Southern Connecticut State University.

Phil Martinez returned to the School of Nursing faculty as a clinical associate professor in May. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Nursing Graduate Entry Pre-Specialty in Nursing (GEPN) program, earning a certificate in nursing in 2002 and an Master of Nursing as an acute care nurse practitioner in 2006.

He then earned a Doctor of Education in nursing education from Southern Connecticut State University in 2015. Prior to this, Martinez earned a Bachelor of Science in law enforcement science from the University of New Haven and a certificate in paramedicine from Hartford Hospital. He is an American Nurses Credentialing Center board-certified acute care nurse practitioner and holds certifications as a critical care registered nurse and a cardiac medicine certification from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.

Martinez has a long academic career in teaching nursing and nursing students in Bachelors of Nursing, Masters of Nursing and doctoral programs. He returned to Yale School of Nursing after graduating and held a faculty position as lecturer from 2006-21 and served as program director of the GEPN program.

Following this, Martinez came to the Quinnipiac School of Nursing and served as an assistant clinical professor of nursing and program director of both the accelerated track of the Bachelors of Nursing program and the acute care nurse practitioner track of the Masters of Nursing program. He continued to teach across programs prior to returning to clinical practice in 2023 and has taught part time at Quinnipiac ever since.

For the past 25 years, Martinez has worked as a critical care nurse and nurse practitioner. He has spent the last 19 years as an acute care nurse practitioner for the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Middlesex Hospital. He has been named an innovator of advanced practice for the development of the critical care off-shift APRN service, Support Person of the Year for the Family Practice Medicine service, and Nurse of the Year. He has also lectured for the Middlesex School of Radiology and the Paramedic program during his time at Middlesex and continues to take students from the acute care nurse practitioner track at Quinnipiac.

Martinez served on the Board of Commissioners for the Commission for Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) as a member and chair of the board and served as co-chair of the accreditation review committee. He serves on the report review committee and as a team leader for CCNE on program site visits. Additionally, he has served on multiple task forces or groups for organizations such as the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
 

The Quinnipiac School of Nursing welcomed Charles Tilley, associate professor in nursing, who will join the School of Nursing for the fall semester. Tilley is an adult primary care and pain and palliative nurse practitioner with a Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing from New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing and a post-master’s certificate in wound, ostomy, and continence nursing.

He brings 34 years of clinical, administrative and education experience to the profession. Tilley is a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE®) with over 17 years of simulation education experience and publishes, presents locally and nationally, and actively conducts research in the field of simulation science.

He has extensive teaching experience in both undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. Tilley’s most recent clinical experience is as a hospice attending and nurse scientist at Calvary Hospice.

His research program spans palliative oncology, palliative wound care, symptom science, hospice workforce development, and simulation outcomes. He has received grants from the American Cancer Society, The Calvary Fund and the Hugoton Foundation to study the symptom experience of patients with advanced cancer and malignant fungating wounds and simulation outcomes.

Prior to his arrival at Quinnipiac, Tilley served as a clinical assistant professor and the director of the Interprofessional Practice, Education & Innovation Program at the Rutgers University School of Nursing in Camden, New Jersey.