After years as a registered nurse, Alethea Hill, PhD, RN, ANP-BC became an acute care nurse practitioner in 2001 and started teaching the undergraduate/graduate program at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama in 2003.

“When I joined academia, I felt like I had found home because it allowed me to marry my love for clinical practice with education.” says Hill. Dr. Hill joined PCNA as a doctoral student as her research began to explore the effects of stress and allostatic load on insulin resistance as a predictor of cardiovascular disease. Since Dr. Hill finished her PhD in 2011, she has been focusing on research in cardiovascular disease among African American women.

She has had many mentors along the way, including her current P3 mentor, which she found through PCNA.

“P3 was a fantastic opportunity for me to enhance my mentorship team because I wasn’t being mentored by an experienced nurse who focused on cardiovascular disease,” says Hill. “I have always seen PCNA as an organization that is on the cusp of current guidelines, literature and education,” says Hill. “I wanted to be part of an organization that focused on cardiovascular disease in the way that PCNA does.”