Education
PhD in Nursing, Minor in Gerontology, 2012. The Pennsylvania State University School of Nursing. State College, PA
Master’s in Nursing in Clinical Nurse Specialist and Adult Health, 2001. The Pennsylvania State University School of Nursing. State College, PA
BSN, 1990. The University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. Pittsburgh, PA

Bio
Lisa Kitko, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN, serves as dean of the University of Rochester School of Nursing, professor of nursing and geriatric medicine, and vice president of the University of Rochester Medical Center. She previously served as the associate dean for graduate education and director of the PhD program at the Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing at Penn State University.

Kitko has extensive clinical research experience with the palliative care needs of persons living with complex chronic conditions and their family caregivers, especially in the context of advanced heart failure. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NINR and NHLBI) and the American Heart Association. Kitko is also the PI of an interdisciplinary training grant (NIH/NHLBI) designed to increase the number of underrepresented undergraduate students who will pursue graduate school. She has widely disseminated her work and has received numerous national and international awards.

A fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Heart Association, she served as a Josiah S. Macy Jr. Faculty Scholar from 2015 to 2017, where she developed an interdisciplinary certificate in primary palliative care. Kitko received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Pittsburgh in 1990. She earned her master’s as a clinical nurse specialist in 2001 and a PhD in nursing with a minor in gerontology in 2010, both from Penn State.