About Anne Berit Petersen, PhD, MS, MPH

Dr. Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the graduate program at the Loma Linda University School of Nursing with a dual appointment in the School of Public Health. She has advanced practice certification as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, specializing in Maternal/Child Nursing, and has worked in a range of clinical settings, including, Pediatrics, Family Nursing, and Health Promotion. In addition, she has extensive global health experience and has worked in capacity-building roles with nurses in Tanzania, China, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Ethiopia. In 2017, she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Tobacco Control Research at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). During her postdoc, she collaborated with a nurse-led project in Eastern Europe focused on enhancing nurses’ competency in tobacco control and understanding barriers to quitting among nurses who smoke. In addition, she contributed to the development of smoking cessation interventions for unstably housed adults and immigrant families. Her current program of research is funded by the Tobacco-related Disease Prevention Program and will focus on the integration of maternal smoking cessation into prenatal care. She remains passionate about empowering and equipping nurses and other healthcare professionals, including community health workers, both here in the US and globally in the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases.