Dr. David M. Keepnews
PhD, JD, RN, FAAN
Executive Director of the Washington State Nurses Association
Season 05 - Episode 02
David M. Keepnews, PhD, JD, RN, FAAN
David Keepnews is currently Executive Director of the Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA), a professional association and labor union. He has devoted the past three decades of his professional career to advancing the nursing profession.
Prior to joining WSNA in September 2021, Dr. Keepnews served in a variety of roles in nursing education, educational administration, health policy and clinical nursing. Most recently, Dr. Keepnews was a professor of nursing at The George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he directed the health policy track in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. He served as Dean of the Harriet Rothkopf Heilbrunn School of Nursing at Long Island University Brooklyn; as Director of Graduate Programs at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing at Hunter College of the City University of New York; and as a nursing faculty member at Adelphi University and the University of Washington.
Dr. Keepnews previously served in professional staff positions in health policy at the American Nurses Association, the California Nurses Association, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He has also held volunteer leadership positions in several organizations including ANA, state nurses associations, and the American Academy of Nursing, where he served as board member for 6 years. For 10 years he was the editor of Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice, a nursing journal focused on nursing and health policy.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Keepnews worked as a staff nurse in inpatient psychiatry, psychiatric emergency, and community mental health settings and as a staff attorney for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. He has published and spoken widely on nursing and health policy issues.
Dr. Keepnews holds a PhD in social policy, with a focus on health policy, from the Heller Graduate School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University; a Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law; a Master of Public Health degree from the University of California, Berkeley; a Master of Science degree from Excelsior College School of Nursing; and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of San Francisco.
He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Academy of Nursing Education. He is board-certified as a Nurse Executive – Advanced by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and is an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows program.
Dr. Keepnews is a Board member of the Washington Center for Nursing and sits on the Board of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), an advocacy, research, and support organization for people with ADHD, their families, and the professionals who work with them.
