The Advanced Practice Initiatives & Certification Outreach Team
Celebrating Back to School Month
Featuring the Story of Katherine Taylor Pearson, DNP, RN, NI-BC, CBBLSS, CDH-E, CPBI, CPHIMS, CKM
Dr. Katherine Taylor Pearson's decision to become a nurse was deeply personal. As a child, she experienced serious urologic and kidney health concerns and came close to requiring dialysis. She vividly remembers the care, expertise, and reassurance provided by her urologist, nephrologist, and the broader healthcare team. Their knowledge and compassion made a lasting impression on her, demonstrating how profoundly skilled, compassionate healthcare can shape a child’s life and give a family hope during challenging circumstances.
Katherine’s mother was also a nurse, and her example influenced her from an early age. Through her mother, Katherine came to view nursing as a profession grounded in service, responsibility, compassion, and practical problem-solving. Together, her childhood healthcare experiences and her mother’s example helped her discover her true passion for nursing.
These moments helped Katherine realize that nursing was more than a career choice—it was an opportunity to serve others during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
Her 25 years of service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, including 22 months in combat environments, shaped Katherine’s understanding of nursing as both a privilege and a profound responsibility. These experiences taught her the importance of teamwork, preparation, adaptability, and leading with humility, courage, and purpose. While she was honored with the Bronze Star, her most lasting lessons came from caring for others under extraordinary circumstances—lessons that continue to guide her work as a nurse, educator, informatics leader, and national nursing leader.
Katherine became ANCC board certified in Nursing Informatics (NI-BC) in 2007, when the specialty was still emerging. At the time, nurses at her hospital did not yet have email, and she helped clinicians adapt to digital tools and electronic documentation. Since then, she has witnessed informatics transform healthcare through electronic health records, interoperability, data analytics, cybersecurity, virtual care, and artificial intelligence. For Katherine, maintaining ANCC certification represents a commitment to lifelong learning, professional excellence, and readiness to adapt. Her military and informatics experiences have reinforced the importance of accurate, secure, and actionable information in advancing safety, improving outcomes, and preparing nurses to lead the future of healthcare.
Katherine’s involvement with the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA), an ANCC collaborative organization, including serving as President, has been a defining part of her journey. Her leadership has broadened her perspective on the challenges informatics nurses face nationwide, while the lessons from her military career continue to shape her work with ANIA colleagues, students, chapters, and national partners.
Katherine values ANIA as a community dedicated to advancing healthcare through information, technology, innovation, and leadership. She appreciates its commitment to professional development, education, certification, advocacy, networking, and mentorship, as well as its role in helping informatics nurses build confidence, lead change, and learn from one another.
Katherine’s family health experiences have deepened her understanding of healthcare beyond the hospital or clinic. As a heart mom, she has seen how a health condition can affect an entire family, reinforcing the importance of prevention, education, timely access to care, and clear communication. As an autism mom, she has gained a deeper appreciation for disability awareness, neurodiversity, inclusion, and accessibility, recognizing that health and well-being are influenced by access to education, healthcare, employment, technology, transportation, and community support.
Her role as a service dog handler has further strengthened her appreciation for individualized independence and accessibility. Her military service, family experiences, and advocacy have shaped her understanding of resilience as the ability to learn, adapt, and support others with empathy and purpose, guiding her work as a nurse, educator, leader, and advocate. Katherine’s journey into informatics began with a growing interest in how technology, information, and systems can improve patient care, inspiring her to learn more.
She decided to pursue a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), strengthening her expertise in leadership, quality improvement, data-informed decision-making, and practice transformation. Pursuing this level of education was a pivotal moment in Katherine’s life, and she hopes nurses seeking to advance their careers will find an educational path that is equally meaningful and fulfilling to them.
For nurses considering returning to school or exploring informatics, Katherine believes it is important to remain curious and recognize the value of the experiences they already bring. Clinical, leadership, military, caregiving, and life experiences provide perspective, resilience, and insight that can make nurses effective leaders and change agents. She hopes nurses will not underestimate how these experiences can shape their educational journey and inspire them to take the next step toward their goals. As healthcare technology continues to evolve, nurses have an important voice in how these technologies are designed, implemented, and used to support patient care. Above all, Katherine believes in following your dreams and having the courage to pursue what inspires you, no matter where your path begins.
Celebrating National Wellness Month
Featuring the Story of Jacob Bottroff, BSN, RN, PMH-BC
Jacob Bottroff’s journey into nursing began after his youngest brother drowned in the family swimming pool. Following this devastating loss, Jacob knew he wanted to work in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to help save the lives of other children. His first nursing position was in the PICU, fulfilling the purpose that initially inspired him to become a nurse.
Over time, Jacob developed a strong interest in psychiatric nursing, which led him to transition from the PICU to inpatient child and adolescent psychiatry. He continues to work in psychiatric nursing today and is certified within this specialty. For Jacob, showing up for people during their most difficult moments is a calling, and psychiatric nursing became his way of answering it. His experiences have given him a unique understanding of mental health and shaped how he supports patients experiencing acute crises, substance withdrawal, psychosis, and manic or depressive episodes.
He understands the importance of being a steady, compassionate presence during moments of vulnerability. As both a nurse and doctoral student, Jacob is committed to improving continuity of care and building systems that support patients beyond their most difficult moments. He believes meaningful psychiatric care requires more than clinical knowledge—it requires empathy, authenticity, advocacy, and respect for each person’s story and lived experience.
After seven years in inpatient acute psychiatric care, Jacob found that becoming ANCC board certified in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing (PMH-BC) gave structure and credibility to what he already believed about psychiatric nursing: stabilization during hospitalization is only the beginning. Certification strengthened his commitment to prevention, early intervention, continuity of care, and holding his practice to the highest standards of scientific rigor, ethics, and evidence-based practice. For Jacob, ANCC certification is both an achievement and a responsibility—to support colleagues, challenge ineffective systems, advocate for vulnerable populations, and contribute to the advancement of psychiatric nursing. It also connected him to a community of compassionate professionals committed to shaping the future of the specialty. Most importantly, board certification marked years of growth and persistence, serving as a catalyst for professional recognition and opening doors to new opportunities for which he remains deeply grateful.
For Jacob, wellness means making prevention and support part of everyday care. He applies the same philosophy to his team, believing sustainable systems and supportive leadership are more effective than individual heroics. Because psychiatric nursing can be demanding and, at times, dangerous, he encourages staff to take breaks, step away when overwhelmed, support one another, and prioritize healthy lives outside of work. He believes staff wellness directly affects patient safety.
Jacob promotes wellness as an essential part of a healthy work environment and manages his own stress through Bikram yoga and hiking with his Goldendoodle, especially after challenging or emotionally demanding days.
The International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses (ISPN), an ANCC collaborative organization, gave Jacob a seat at the table earlier in his career than he expected. As the inaugural graduate student member of the ISPN Policy Committee while pursuing a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program, he gained a broader understanding of psychiatric nursing at the systems and policy levels while learning from respected leaders in research, education, practice, and advocacy. That experience strengthened his confidence to contribute and led to greater involvement in American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA), an ANCC collaborative organization, including serving on its Scholarly Review Committee and being selected as a 2026 APNA Board of Directors Scholar. His professional growth has also opened doors with Psych Congress, where he was selected as a 2025 Elevate Scholar and, in a full-circle moment, will return in 2026 as a presenter of his research-in-progress poster. These experiences have reinforced Jacob’s belief that leadership is built through involvement, service, and meaningful contributions—one organization, committee, project, and patient at a time.
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Meet Katelyn Bern who manages customer engagement through social media and at ANCC tradeshows. She is committed to delivering engaging and meaningful content to keep you informed about important updates, including celebrations of certified nurses, stories of inspiration, newsletters, upcoming webinars, and more!
Stories of Inspiration from ANCC Certified Nurses began in May of 2024. You can view all previous stories by visiting our Meet the Team page, under the Stories of Inspiration tab. Please let us know if you are interested in sharing your story with us by completing the below survey:
