Dr. Burkhart’s professional background includes psychiatric nursing, counseling, nursing and health care administration, staff development, and education, and conference speaker. Dr. Burkhart’s experience as an educator includes a three-year college/university teaching assignment in East Africa and as nursing faculty in the United States since 2007, teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels of education, and holding combined administrative and educator positions for part of that time. For the past eight years, Dr. Burkhart was faculty at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico before accepting the position as Director of Nursing/Associate Professor of Nursing position at Ottawa University, Overland Park, Kansas.
Dr. Burkhart has had several professional appointments to local, state, national and international councils and coalitions, including a past appointment to the New Mexico Governor’s Mental Health Planning Council, and a two-year appointment to the Council of an international university in East Africa. She is a past White House appointee as Native American Representative to the Binational Substance Abuse Coalition (US/Mexico border). Dr. Burkhart’s public speaking experience is in the areas of mental health, substance abuse, and cultural competency. She has been a faculty advisor of the Student Nurses Association, a Sigma Theta Tau and Pi Omega (international nursing honor society) board member, member of the American Nurses Association, member of the New Mexico Native American Indian Nursing Association (NMNAINA), past president of District 14 and state board member of the New Mexico Nurses Association, member of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), and co-founder and faculty advisor for NAMI on Campus New Mexico State University (NMSU). She was a recent participant in New Mexico’s health care reform initiative, Health System Innovation, and regional implementation with this initiative through the Dona Ana Wellness Institute.