Ellen B. Buckner, PhD, RN, CNE, AE-C, FNAP, is Professor of Nursing at Moffett & Sanders School of Nursing, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama. She has served as President of the Alabama Academy of Science and Alabama Asthma Coalition. Dr. Buckner is a certified asthma educator (AE-C) and has developed asthma camps and school-based asthma self-management programs for 20 years. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic she founded the interprofessional Virtual Young Teen Asthma & Wellness Camp, Inc. (YTAWC). She continues to seek opportunities for program expansion to rural populations in Alabama. Dr. Buckner has received the UAB Ingalls Award for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching (2005) and Association of Asthma Educators’ Humanitarian and Outstanding Asthma Community Service Award (2020).

Miranda Curtis 

Linda Gibson-Young has an exciting academic background in population health with a focus on pediatrics. Her work actively engages undergraduate and graduate students in outreach and research. Dr. Gibson-Young has a Ph.D. in nursing, an MBA, and is certified as a family nurse practitioner (ANCC). In 2021, she received the Distinguished Fellow of the National Academies of Practice in Nursing. In 2016, she became a Fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP) and a Leadership for Academic Nursing Program (LANP) Fellow with the American Association of Colleges in Nursing (AACN). In 2015, she received the Outstanding Research Award from The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF). Collaborative and interdisciplinary teams partner with Dr. Gibson-Young's outreach and research across Alabama.

Kristen A. Korankyi, Pharm.D., M.S.Ed is a heterosexual cis-gender African American female who goes by She/Her/Her’s pronouns. She is a second generation Ghanian American born and raised in the United States who speaks English as a first language and Twi as a second language with passive fluency. She is able bodied, of petite stature, and neurotypical. She has lived a privileged upper middle-class life with both parents in healthcare who have achieved advanced college degrees in their fields, one parent as a pharmacist and the other as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. She is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice and specializes in ambulatory care pharmacy/family medicine. In her position, she is an educator to students at the Harrison College of Pharmacy and to her patients as part of the USA Family Medicine Clinic. Korankyi's responsibilities within HCOP include teaching within the practice ready curriculum, contributing to scholarly work, and advising students. At the Family Medicine Clinic, she functions as an ambulatory care pharmacist who provides counseling and optimizes medication therapy to patients with primary care disease states such as diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and obesity management. A graduate of the High Point University Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy, Korankyi received her Pharm.D. in 2021. She went on to complete a two-year pharmacy practice and academic leadership residency at Concordia University, Wisconsin. While there, she also completed a master of science in education in teaching and learning.

Ashley Lyerly serves as the Senior Director of Advocacy for the American Lung Association. She leads advocacy activities on tobacco control, healthy air, and other lung health issues across the Southeast. She has managed numerous initiatives to improve tobacco control policies at the state and local level, including various campaigns to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke. She strongly advocates on access to care and healthy air issues and is voice for lung disease patients in state legislatures. Prior to joining the American Lung Association in 2011, Ashley was a Project Facilitator for United Way of Central Alabama addressing tobacco control and prevention strategies. In addition to her previous work in tobacco control, she has a background working on financial stability issues with the low to moderate income population as the Manager of Workforce Development and Financial Stability for United Way Worldwide. Ashley Lyerly has a Bachelors of Arts in Urban Studies from Rhodes College and a Masters of Public Administration from the George Washington University.

Phillip Steele