Mayumi Willgerodt PhD, MPH, FAAN, FNASN, RN

Dr. Willgerodt is the Charles and Gerda Spence Endowed Professor in Nursing in the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington. Her career has focused on improving the health and educational success of marginalized and vulnerable children and youth through advancing school health policy, research, practice, and workforce capacity building.

Dr. Willgerodt’s research and scholarly foci are centered around school health, school nursing and interprofessional (IP) education and collaborative practice (CP) as a means to improve health equity and impact health outcomes in youth, particularly with vulnerable and minority populations. She is founder and co-advisor for the Center for School Health Innovation and Quality and was the founding associate editor of the Journal of Interprofessional Education and Practice. In November 2022, Dr. Willgerodt co-chaired “Sharing and Exchanging Ideas and Global Experiences on Community-engaged approaches to Oral Health: A Workshop of the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education, hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Dr Willgerodt’s school health workforce research includes her landmark first nationally representative study in 2018 of the school nursing workforce, which illuminated the need for leveraging the professional expertise of school nurses to strengthen interprofessional care coordination and maximize efficiencies across systems of care within communities. The second National School Nurse Workforce Study is currently underway, with an anticipated release date of 2023. Within Washington State, Dr. Willgerodt’s school nurse workforce development research aims to explicate models of school health services delivery that highlights the essential function of school communities and school nurses in ensuring equitable access to health care and improved academic outcomes. This research will also serve to further illuminate the nature of, and requirements for, further development of the overall school health workforce.

In addition to school nursing workforce and services delivery, Dr. Willgerodt has led several teams on HRSA-funded grants to increase the nursing workforce with an emphasis on interprofessional collaborative practice. She has developed, facilitated, and led interprofessional curricula and training activities for students and faculty and provides consultation nationally and internationally on integrating interprofessional education into both didactic and clinical settings. Dr. Willgerodt is committed to supporting and mentoring nurses at all levels and participates in efforts to diversify the nursing workforce.

Dr. Willgerodt’s current academic leadership roles include serving as interim director of the Centers for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education Research and Practice (CHSIE) and Vice-Chair for Education in the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington. She also holds an Affiliate Faculty appointment in the Center for Global Health Nursing and is faculty on the MCH-funded Leadership Education in Adolescent Health Training Grant at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Dr. Willgerodt is a member of the 2013-15 Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholar cohort, the editorial panel of the Journal of School Nursing and serves on the Research Advisory Board for National Association of School Nurses.

In 2019, Dr. Willgerodt was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nurses, and in 2020, as a Fellow in the National Association of School Nurses.

Education

• PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago
• MPH/MS, University of Illinois at Chicago
• BSN, Georgetown University

Awards and accolades

• Macy Faculty Scholar (2013-2015), Josiah Macy Jr Foundation
• Distinguished Teaching Award for Innovation with Technology (team) (2017), Nominee, University of Washington
• Fellow, American Academy of Nurses
• Fellow, National Association of School Nurses

What classes do you teach?

NMETH 801
NMETH 533

What do you love about the UW School of Nursing?

The commitment to excellence and equity but most importantly, the students. I love working with, and learning from our incredibly bright and forward-thinking students.

Keywords

• School health
• School nursing
• Student/family centered care
• Interprofessional education
• Collaborative practice
• Team training

Department

Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing

Research Areas

• Health Equity
• Lifespan Health

Research Centers

• Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education