Neonatal and Pediatric Nurse Practitioners Team

The school’s faculty members bring to the classroom the benefits of their expertise and amazing experience in these two critical areas. Brenda Cassidy, DNP, CPNP-PC, assistant professor and lead instructor for the pediatric nurse practitioner program, is a pediatric CRNP for a large urban pediatric practice, where she specializes in comprehensive adolescent health care and gynecological care of teens, as well as at a regional children’s facility. Kathleen Godfrey, DNP, NNP-BC, CPNP, assistant professor and lead faculty member for the neonatal nurse practitioner program, has served as a nurse practitioner for the past 25 years, primarily as a neonatal nurse practitioner in a NICU at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC. Cynthia Danford, PhD, PNP-BC, CPNP-PC, teaches in the pediatric nurse practitioner program while maintaining an active research program that seeks to promote children’s health in vulnerable populations through family-focused interventions that address eating and activity behaviors. She has been honored with the American Nurses Foundation’s Virginia S. Cleland Scholar Grant for her research with preschool children.

First published in Pitt Nurse magazine, Fall 2014