Tener Goodwin Veenema, PhD, MPH, MS

Professional Profile

Dr. Veenema is Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and a Senior Scientist in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At the Center, she designs and leads research projects to explore health systems optimization and healthcare worker protection during disasters and large-scale biological events. As an internationally recognized expert in disaster nursing and public health emergency preparedness, she has served as Senior Scientist to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response (OHSEPR), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center (VEMEC), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Her program of research focuses on informing evidence-based policy related to health care systems and public health response for global catastrophic events such as pandemics and radiation/nuclear disasters. She has conducted national workforce analyses evaluating emergency healthcare worker readiness and coordination of acute and public health systems for disaster response on behalf of the Ministries of Health in Ireland and Japan and in the United States.

An accomplished scholar and researcher, Dr. Veenema is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), and an elected Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the National Academies of Practice, and the Royal College of Surgeons, Faculty of Nursing & Midwifery, Dublin, Ireland. At the National Academy of Medicine, Dr. Veenema is a member of the Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness and the Disaster Research Action Collaborative, and she serves as Chair of the Standing Committee for the CDC Center for Preparedness and Response. Her work with the National Academy of Medicine has impacted national awareness and understanding of Crisis Standards of Care, federal capabilities for the Medical Countermeasure Enterprise, and respiratory protections for healthcare workers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as Senior Advisor to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Dr. Veenema is an expert in workforce development and has taught public health preparedness for more than 25 years. She is the author of 4 national e-learning courses in public health preparedness for healthcare providers (Coursera, Elsevier, MC Strategies, American Red Cross). She serves as Associate Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Health Security and Editor of Disaster Nursing and Emergency Preparedness for Chemical, Biological and Radiological Terrorism and Other Hazards, 4th Ed., the leading textbook in the field. She also developed Disaster Nursing, a digital app to provide decision support at the point of care during disasters. Dr. Veenema served on the American Red Cross National Scientific Advisory Board for 10 years. As a member of the World Society for Disaster Nursing, she worked with colleagues at the International Council of Nurses (ICN) to write the ICN Disaster Nursing Competencies, version 2.0. She was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal of Honor (2013, International Red Crescent), the highest international award in nursing for her professional service in disasters and public health emergencies. She received a Fulbright US Scholar Award (2017), was selected as Visiting Research Scholar to Torrens Disaster Institute (Australia, 2017) and New York University (2018), and received a lifetime achievement award from Columbia University School of Nursing (2019). Dr. Veenema was recently awarded the 2022 McGovern Lectureship by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Dr. Veenema received master’s degrees in nursing administration (1992), pediatrics (1993), and public health (1999) and a PhD in health services research and policy (2001) from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Dr. Veenema served as the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) 2017-18 Distinguished Nurse Scholar-in-Residence.