Sheila Gephart, PhD, RN, FAAN

Sheila Gephart, PhD, RN, is an Associate Professor at The University of Arizona, College of Nursing and principal investigator for the NEC-Zero Project. She earned her BSN from OHSU in 1998 and her PhD in Nursing from the University of Arizona with a minor in informatics in 2012. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Passionate about improving neonatal outcomes, she developed an early warning score for necrotizing enterocolitis called GutCheckNEC and has been working to integrate it into a smart alerting system in the electronic health record. Serving as a scientific advisory board member for the NEC Society, she is inspired daily to continue her work to spread best practices for NEC prevention and timely recognition. She grew up in Oregon as the third of seven children. Now residing in Tucson, Arizona, she and her husband, Dave, have three daughters and enjoy traveling in their spare time.