Joyce Black

Joyce M. Black, PhD, RN is an emertus Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. She taught advanced pathophysiology to nurse practitioner, pharmacy and physical therapy students. Dr. Black also supervised research activities of graduate students. She is an Internationally recognized expert in pressure injury prevention and treatment. Dr. Black is a past President of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel and has been active in developing many position papers related to the COVID-19 crisis and detecting pressure injury in persons with very dark skin. She is often credited with the rediscovery of deep tissue pressure injury and was inducted into the Academy of Nursing for this work. Dr. Black has received many awards for her work in pressure injury, most recently the Joyce Black Excellence in Teaching Award created for her accomplishments with NPIAP and given to her as the first recipient. A prior award was the Kosiak award from NPIAP for her work to rediscover deep tissue pressure injury.

Dr. Virginia Capasso, PhD, CNP, CNS, CWS, FACCWS, FAAN was an Advanced Practice Nurse for Patient Care Services, Office of Quality, Safety, Informatics, and Practice and a Nurse Scientist, Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research, at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), as well as an Instructor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School, until March, 2025. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American College of Clinical Wound Specialists as well as a Diplomate of the American Board of Wound Management. She is a Director on the Board of Directors of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel (NPIAP). Her other NPIAP roles include Co-Chair of the Stage 2 Task Force, member of the Education Committee and conference planning committees, Nominating Committee, Support Surface Standard Initiative (S3I) [2014-present], the international Prophylactic Dressing Standards Initiative (PDSI) [2021-present] and two PDSI subgroups focused on adhesiveness and mechanical properties / durability. Her research has focused on methods of measurement of wound volume and the cost and effectiveness of wound treatments.

Dr. Yi-Ting Tzen, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She received her PhD in Rehabilitation Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interest is pressure injury prevention and early detection in people with spinal cord injury and elderly population. Several strategies she has examined with this topic include localized cooling, non-invasive perfusion markers and serum index. She is currently the co-chair of the NPIAP Standards Mission Committee and the taskforce leader of the NPIAP Emerging Leader Program.

Dr. Virginia Capasso, PhD, CNP, CNS, CWS, FACCWS, FAAN was an Advanced Practice Nurse for Patient Care Services, Office of Quality, Safety, Informatics, and Practice and a Nurse Scientist, Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research, at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), as well as an Instructor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School, until March, 2025. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American College of Clinical Wound Specialists as well as a Diplomate of the American Board of Wound Management. She is a Director on the Board of Directors of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel (NPIAP). Her other NPIAP roles include Co-Chair of the Stage 2 Task Force, member of the Education Committee and conference planning committees, Nominating Committee, Support Surface Standard Initiative (S3I) [2014-present], the international Prophylactic Dressing Standards Initiative (PDSI) [2021-present] and two PDSI subgroups focused on adhesiveness and mechanical properties / durability. Her research has focused on methods of measurement of wound volume and the cost and effectiveness of wound treatments.

Joshua Morriss, Ph.D., serves as the CEO and Cofounder of Ziplitics, a research services corporation for the health sciences. Dr. Morriss obtained a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical sciences from Virginia Commonwealth University, where his research was on explainable artificial intelligence (AI) platforms and QSRR and QSPR models. He has expertise in explainable AI, metabolomics, and natural language processing, with experience in cardiovascular and inflammatory disease management. He is the inventor of the Literature Review Network (LRN), a propriety explainable AI platform for literature reviews, meta-analyses, real world evidence research and health economics outcomes research. As an advocate for trustworthy AI use, Dr. Morriss collaborates with pharmaceutical and medical device companies to conduct cutting-edge evidence-based research and responsibly develop consensus statements that help inform and shape wound care practice. Dr. Morriss has also collaborated with WOCNs and wound-care experts to produce the first ever XAI-assisted Consensus Statement. The evidence underpinning this consensus statement on ostomy care was generated in 5 business days.

Joyce M. Black, PhD, RN is an emertus Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. She taught advanced pathophysiology to nurse practitioner, pharmacy and physical therapy students. Dr. Black also supervised research activities of graduate students. She is an Internationally recognized expert in pressure injury prevention and treatment. Dr. Black is a past President of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel and has been active in developing many position papers related to the COVID-19 crisis and detecting pressure injury in persons with very dark skin. She is often credited with the rediscovery of deep tissue pressure injury and was inducted into the Academy of Nursing for this work. Dr. Black has received many awards for her work in pressure injury, most recently the Joyce Black Excellence in Teaching Award created for her accomplishments with NPIAP and given to her as the first recipient. A prior award was the Kosiak award from NPIAP for her work to rediscover deep tissue pressure injury.

Joyce M. Black, PhD, RN is an emertus Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. She taught advanced pathophysiology to nurse practitioner, pharmacy and physical therapy students. Dr. Black also supervised research activities of graduate students. She is an Internationally recognized expert in pressure injury prevention and treatment. Dr. Black is a past President of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel and has been active in developing many position papers related to the COVID-19 crisis and detecting pressure injury in persons with very dark skin. She is often credited with the rediscovery of deep tissue pressure injury and was inducted into the Academy of Nursing for this work. Dr. Black has received many awards for her work in pressure injury, most recently the Joyce Black Excellence in Teaching Award created for her accomplishments with NPIAP and given to her as the first recipient. A prior award was the Kosiak award from NPIAP for her work to rediscover deep tissue pressure injury.

David Brienza is Professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and is Associate Dean for Technology and Innovation in the School. He is trained as an engineer and has considerable additional experience conducting clinical and preclinical research. Over the past 34 years, his research has been funded through grants from National Institutes of Health and other public and private foundations, and industry sources. The majority of this work has been focused on tissue integrity management. Current and recently completed projects include a clinical trial on support surface effectiveness in acute care and the development and validation of support surface and dressing performance standards. Dr. Brienza currently serves as President of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel.

Janet Cuddigan, PhD, RN, FAAN is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Nursing in Omaha, Nebraska. She is a recipient of the the NPIAP's Kosiak Award and President's Award. She has 40 years of critical care clinical experience. Her research focuses on physiological risks for pressure injury development in critical care, prevention of medical device related pressure injuries and PPE related injuries. She currently serves as the Chair of the 4th Edition International Pressure Injury Guideline Governance Group.

David Brienza is Professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and is Associate Dean for Technology and Innovation in the School. He is trained as an engineer and has considerable additional experience conducting clinical and preclinical research. Over the past 34 years, his research has been funded through grants from National Institutes of Health and other public and private foundations, and industry sources. The majority of this work has been focused on tissue integrity management. Current and recently completed projects include a clinical trial on support surface effectiveness in acute care and the development and validation of support surface and dressing performance standards. Dr. Brienza currently serves as President of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel.

Joyce M. Black, PhD, RN is an emertus Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. She taught advanced pathophysiology to nurse practitioner, pharmacy and physical therapy students. Dr. Black also supervised research activities of graduate students. She is an Internationally recognized expert in pressure injury prevention and treatment. Dr. Black is a past President of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel and has been active in developing many position papers related to the COVID-19 crisis and detecting pressure injury in persons with very dark skin. She is often credited with the rediscovery of deep tissue pressure injury and was inducted into the Academy of Nursing for this work. Dr. Black has received many awards for her work in pressure injury, most recently the Joyce Black Excellence in Teaching Award created for her accomplishments with NPIAP and given to her as the first recipient. A prior award was the Kosiak award from NPIAP for her work to rediscover deep tissue pressure injury.