Throughout her distinguished nursing career, Betty Rambur has taken the long—and wide—view of her profession. The new Routhier Endowed Chair for Practice at the College of Nursing, Rambur has worked to reform health care payment systems and address disparities in the quality of and access to care across diverse populations. “One of my particular concerns is mobilizing nurses to re-imagine the span of their roles to solve vexing problems in society,” says Rambur.

This month, her expansive vision for the role of nurses in transforming health care will be recognized when she becomes a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. This peer-nominated credential from an organization with members in all 50 states and 28 countries recognizes contributions to nursing that have lasting impact.

Rambur believes nursing education and research must create professionals and nurse scientists who are experts not just in health and health care, but in cost containment and improved patient outcomes, and she hopes to spread that message further as an Academy fellow. “It’s an opportunity to take what you know and give back through the role of an academy member,” she says.

This former dean of Nursing and Health Science at the University of Vermont believes so strongly in the importance of nursing’s larger role in improving health care that she wrote a textbook that aims to give nursing students the knowledge to lead at the bedside and in the boardroom: “Health Care Finance, Economics, and Policy for Nurses: A Foundational Guide.”

Rambur’s philosophy of cross-pollination puts her right at home in URI’s newly formed Academic Health Collaborative, which takes a multi-disciplinary approach to health professions through instruction and research that bridges several colleges.