Kathleen R. Stevens, EdD, FAAN, RN, ANEF

Castella Endowed Distinguished Professor

Kathleen R. Stevens, MS, RN, FAAN

Dr. Kathleen R. Stevens is Professor of Nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA). She is the Founding Director of the Academic Center for Evidence-Based Practice (ACE; now called the Center for Advancing Clinical Excellence), a UTHSCSA School of Nursing Center of Excellence where she leads efforts to advance evidence-based quality improvement through research, education, and practice.

Dr. Stevens is an investigator on interprofessional projects with emphasis on systematic reviews and organizational change for evidence-based quality improvement. Dr. Stevens’s research focuses on the impact of evidence-based interventions, knowledge transformation, and workforce preparation for quality and safety. She has received significant funding to develop a national network to support rigorous improvement research projects (National Institutes of Health), to create a community-wide collaborative for team training (University of Texas System), and to engage frontline teams in quality improvement in acute care (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation).

Through ACE, Dr. Stevens initiated the ongoing Summer Institute on Evidence-Based Practice in 2002, a national interdisciplinary conference with multiple years of funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), as well as the Educators Evidence Based-Practice (EBP) Workshop. She leads the group launching the new Improvement Science Summit in 2010.

Dr. Stevens served multiple terms as elected officer of the National League for Nursing, a leading nursing education organization that sets standards for faculty and nursing education programs, and Sigma Theta Tau, the international nursing honor society. She serves in several national-level consultant and expert roles, including panel expert for the Institute of Medicine report Preventing Medication Errors, advisory council member to safety projects of the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, and editorial board member for the AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange, including providing services to build the Exchange. She is a consultant to hospitals seeking Magnet Recognition status and education programs in implementing EBP curricula.

Dr. Stevens received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Northwestern State University of Louisiana, her Master of Science in Maternal-Child Health from Texas Woman's University, and her Doctorate in Health Science Research and Education from the Baylor College of Medicine/University of Houston program. She is a fellow of the Academy of Nurse Educators and the American Academy of Nursing.