Catherine Tierney, DNP, ACNP-BC is a clinical expert with more than 20 years of critical care experience as an acute care nurse practitioner specializing in cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgery. She joined the AG-ACNP program faculty as adjunct in 2011 and became a full time assistant professor in 2019.
Tierney obtained a BSN from Fairfield University and worked at Massachusetts General Hospital and Georgetown Medical Center before obtaining a master’s degree in trauma and critical care from the University of Maryland. She received her Doctor of Nursing Practice at Duke University in 2019.
Tierney is the Director of the Adult Gerontology-Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program since July, 2023. Prior to that, she served as the Clinical Faculty Advisor (CFA) Director since 2014 and has guided dozens of students through their clinical experiences. Tierney received the Sigma Theta Tau award for mentoring in 2016 for her work advising both students and faculty. She serves on the board of the Virginia Council for Nurse Practitioners (VCNP) and acts as the Northern Virginia representative for VCNP conference planning.
Tierney's interests include critical care medicine with a focus on post-surgical care, mechanical ventilation management and the use of standardized patients and high-fidelity simulation to teach clinical competence. She has published several articles relating to respiratory disease, mechanical ventilation and critical care. Tierney has spoken locally and nationally on critical care topics as well as topics related to advanced practice education, measuring clinical competence in a distance learning environment, and clinical mentoring.