HPNA Announces 2026 Fellows in Palliative Care Nursing
The designation of Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) Fellow in Palliative Care Nursing (FPCN®) is bestowed upon HPNA members who have made significant contributions to HPNA, the Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center (HPCC), and/or the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Foundation (HPNF), while also impacting the field of hospice and palliative nursing. HPNA fellows are leading the way for the future of hospice and palliative nursing as clinicians, researchers, managers, and advocates. These individuals will be recognized in-person at the 2026 HPNA Annual Conference from May 7–8, 2026, in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
HPNA is pleased to announce the following 2026 FPCN® inductees:
Sharon Bigger, PhD, MA, RN, CHPN®, CNE, FPCN®
Sharon has been an RN in neurosciences and hospice settings for 23 years and a Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN®) for 19 years. She holds a PhD in nursing, a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in Spanish, a second bachelor’s degree in nursing, and a master’s degree in philosophy and religion with a concentration in global women’s studies. Dr. Bigger is bilingual in English and Spanish, and previously served as a medical interpreter. An ELNEC trainer, she has fostered and maintained a collaborative relationship with ELNEC-Mexico. Her program of research focuses on goals-of-care communication with linguistically diverse populations with serious illnesses and at the end of life. Her doctoral study focused on home health advance care planning protocols and disparities in acute care services use.
Residing in Asheville, North Carolina, Dr. Bigger is currently a post-doctoral fellow through the University of Utah College of Nursing. She applies community engagement and global learning approaches to her current research on advance care planning, high-quality language interpreting, and family caregiving and communication among Hispanic/Latino persons in palliative care settings. While developing her program of research, Dr. Bigger maintains her practice as a visiting home hospice nurse.
Katherine (Kate) Doyon, PhD, MEd, RN, CHPN®, FPCN®
Kate is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Boise State University. She completed a T32 postdoctoral fellowship in Palliative Care and Aging at the University of Colorado and a predoctoral fellowship in Cancer, Aging, and End-of-Life at the University of Utah. Her scholarship focuses on advancing equity in hospice and palliative care through community-engaged, communication-based interventions that are grounded in cultural humility.
Dr. Doyon is a Cambia Sojourns Leadership Scholar and the principal investigator (PI) of a two-year Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation grant, with additional extramural funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and other foundations. Dr. Doyon was recognized as the 2020 HPNA Research Scholar and received the 2026 HPNA New Investigator Award. She co-authored HPNA’s health equity research priorities and served as co-chair of the Palliative Care Research Cooperative’s Health Equity and Anti-Racism Special Interest Group.
A dedicated mentor, Dr. Doyon has guided many interdisciplinary research assistants who have presented nationally and internationally and gone on to pursue graduate education and careers in hospice and palliative care. She also serves as Idaho’s ELNEC Champion, integrating palliative care across undergraduate and graduate curricula.
Abby Fuoto, DNP, ANP-BC, AOCNP®, ACHPN®, FPCN®
Abby is a nurse practitioner who is board certified in adult primary care, medical oncology, and hospice and palliative care. She has worked at two National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers—Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and Banner University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson—and has practiced in both inpatient and outpatient hospice and palliative care settings. She completed her doctoral degree at Duke University with a quality improvement project focused on communication skills training, which was subsequently published in the Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing. She has also published projects regarding seizure disorders in the elderly, pain management in cancer survivors, head and neck cancer, renal disorders in palliative care, and graphic medicine. She has been invited to give talks on “breaking bad news” at her current institution as well as the Southern Arizona Oncology Nursing Society Annual Symposium (SAONS), The Arizona Clinical Oncology Society (TACOS), and the Advanced Practice Providers Oncology Summit (APPOS). She is currently serving as chair of the ACHPN® Exam Development Committee for the HPCC.
Maria Gatto, MA, APRN, ACHPN®, APHN, MHs.B, FPCN®
Maria is an advanced practice nurse, dual board-certified in palliative and holistic care, with multiple masters and certification in Caring Science Theory. A national expert and consultant for more than 30 years, her successful analysis, design, and expert application of implementation science create sustainable palliative care services meeting national evidence-based standards that maximize return on investment and the Quadruple Aim. As a corporate health system leader for multiple Catholic health systems, her standardization of policy, practice, education, operations, and quality outcomes exceeded clinical quality, satisfaction scores, deceased length of stay, and decreasing readmissions, while increasing both direct cost savings and revenue in the millions. Her national work has been with The Center to Advance Palliative Care, Palliative Care Quality Collaborative, The Coalition to Transform Advance Care, HPNA, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and Catholic Health Association. A national speaker, presenter, volunteer, and author, her passions are not just professional but include her faith, family, husband Marc, and daughter Isabella. Her life-changing experiences are the birth of her daughter, serving as a first-responder nurse on September 11, 2001, at Ground Zero, and mission work. For Maria, palliative care isn’t a profession; it’s her life purpose in service to humankind.
Shena Gazaway, PhD, MSN, RN, CHPN®, FPCN®
Shena is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As an RN working within the community, her practice experience stimulated her research interest in supporting upstream decision-making of seriously ill patients and families, particularly those who live in built environments that limit access to specialty palliative care services. In addition, her work centers on the belief that individuals living with serious illness are the best navigators of their illness experience, and interventions must incorporate local knowledge, beliefs, and practices for long-term success. Specifically, her research is focused on developing and optimizing community-informed decision-support interventions for individuals living with advanced chronic kidney disease and their caregivers. However, she also disseminates community-engaged science that applies community-engaged research principles in multiple areas of palliative science. Shena has received funding from national, foundational, and internal mechanisms.
Kristin Levoy, PhD, MSN, RN, OCN®, FPCN®
Kristin is an Assistant Professor at the Indiana University School of Nursing, a Research Scientist at the Indiana University Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute, and an Associate Member of Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. As an RN with more than 20 years of oncology experience, Dr. Levoy’s research is dedicated to enhancing patient and caregiver access to timely palliative care delivery when facing serious illnesses, such as cancer. Her current research focuses on advancing the delivery of primary palliative care—palliative/supportive care delivered by providers who are not palliative care specialists—earlier in the cancer illness trajectory to better meet patients’ and caregivers’ evolving supportive care needs. This includes the development and testing of a primary palliative care intervention that leverages behavioral strategies to foster more patient- and caregiver-centered communication about supportive care needs to enhance the integration of palliative/supportive care in routine outpatient oncology care and to provide the “right” supportive care at the “right” time. Dr. Levoy’s research has been supported by prestigious organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the National Palliative Care Research Center, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National Institute of Nursing Research.
Natalie S. McAndrew, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRN-K, FPCN®
Natalie is a Nurse Scientist and Senior Associate Consultant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Drawing on her extensive experience as an ICU nurse and Clinical Nurse Specialist, Dr. McAndrew leads research focused on advancing patient and family engagement in palliative care. Her work centers on designing and implementing palliative-informed interventions—particularly for caregivers in high-acuity and transplant settings to ensure they receive support across the illness trajectory. She is dedicated to creating scalable, supportive care programs for integration into healthcare and community systems.
Dr. McAndrew serves as the Research SIG leader for HPNA and has authored six position statements, including the Medical Aid in Dying statement, guiding HPNA members on critical practice issues. Recent palliative-focused publications include “Supporting hematopoietic stem cell transplant family caregivers: A pilot study of nurse-led Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Cancer Caregivers” (2025) in Psycho-Oncology, “A mixed-methods feasibility study: Eliciting ICU experiences and measuring outcomes of family caregivers of patients who have undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplantation” (2023) in Journal of Family Nursing, and “Rapid Review of Family Caregiver Engagement in Hospice and End-of-Life Patient Care: Implications for Nursing Practice” (2025) in Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing.
Lolita W. Melhado, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, ACHPN®, FPCN®
Lolita is Vice President of Clinical Programs at OneAccord Health in Fort Myers, Florida, with more than 30 years of nursing experience. She earned her PhD in Nursing from the University of Central Florida, specializing in palliative care and health policy. Dr. Melhado has established consultation services across multiple health care systems and developed comprehensive palliative care education programs. Her scholarly work includes numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and contributions to the core curriculum for hospice and palliative advanced practice nurses. She serves in key leadership positions, including Chair-elect of the National Coalition of Hospice and Palliative Care Quality and Equity Committee, and is the former co-Chair of HPNA’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Taskforce. In 2017, she received the HPNA Distinguished Nursing Practice Award. Dr. Melhado is passionate about advancing equitable access to high-quality end-of-life care and mentoring the next generation of health care providers in palliative care excellence.
Djin Lyn Tay, PhD, RN, FPCN®
Djin is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Utah’s College of Nursing and has been an HPNA member since 2014. Dr. Tay’s established record of service since 2019 includes serving in roles such as a subject matter expert to the advance care planning task force, a co-chair of the Emerging Scholars Special Interest Group, a member of the Research Advisory Committee, and a member of the Membership Engagement Committee. As a 2024 HPNA New Investigator, Dr. Tay has participated as a junior faculty visiting professor with the University of Pittsburgh Palliative Research Center, contributed to a chapter on serious illness caregiving in the Evidence-Based Practice of Palliative Medicine (2nd ed.), and represented the field at an invited talk with the National Academies of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine. To date, Dr. Tay has authored 54 peer-reviewed publications, presented more than 100 times at conferences, and served as a peer reviewer to 25 scientific journals, a majority of which are related to hospice and palliative care. Her program of research includes population-based approaches to study end-of-life caregiving, innovative approaches to support rural cancer patients and families, and end-of-life outcomes associated with novel cancer therapies.
Brandon M. Varilek, PhD, RN, CCTC, CNE®, CHPN®, FPCN®
Brandon is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing. His program of research is focused on improving access to palliative care, mitigating health disparities, and reducing the health-related social needs of minoritized populations living in Nebraska and South Dakota. Much of this work centers around persons with chronic or end-stage kidney disease or patients with cancer. Dr. Varilek is an NIH-funded researcher. His work through the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases explored hospice use disparities between American Indian and non-Hispanic white populations as well as kidney transplant recipients. Additionally, his work has shown significant survival disparities for minority populations living on dialysis for prolonged periods compared to white persons on dialysis.
Dr. Varilek serves HPNA in many capacities, ranging from volunteering on the Research Advisory Committee and State Communities Task Force, to serving as the policy and advocacy State Ambassador for the state of Nebraska.
Michelle Webb, RN, DNP, CHPCA®, FPCN®
Michelle is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Duke University School of Nursing with more than three decades of nursing leadership experience, including extensive leadership in hospice and palliative care. She served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Nursing Officer at Four Seasons Hospice and Palliative Care and later as Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Learning Officer at Teleios Collaborative Network.
Dr. Webb is nationally recognized for her contributions to advancing interprofessional collaborative practice, telehospice innovation, and the delivery of culturally competent care. She has held multiple leadership roles within HPNA and HPNF, including President and Secretary-Treasurer. She has contributed to advancing expert hospice and palliative care through teaching, leading, mentoring, and health policy advocacy. Her scholarly work includes numerous peer-reviewed publications and book chapters focused on leadership, health equity, and palliative nursing. As an educator, consultant, and mentor, Dr. Webb continues to shape the future of serious illness care through teaching, quality improvement, research, and service.
Rachel Wells, PhD, MSN, RN, CNL, CHPN®, FPCN®
Rachel is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As a nurse with 15 years of clinical experience in cardiac critical care, palliative care, and rural health, her research bridges the fields of chronic illness care and early palliative care. Specifically, Dr. Wells has focused on the development and testing of highly efficient and effective models of early palliative care for those living with advanced heart failure. Her program of research focuses on the examination of active palliative care intervention elements and dosing of palliative care to develop optimized interventions that uniquely address palliative care needs. She has been involved with federally, foundationally, and intramurally funded grants as a PI and co-investigator focused on intervention development and tailoring and testing and implementation of models of early palliative care for those living with serious illness and their family caregivers. Dr. Wells is regularly engaged in HPNA, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the American Heart Association, and American College of Cardiology where she has championed efforts to educate nurses and others to identify, monitor, and intervene early for cardiovascular challenges in under-resourced populations.