Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess

Ann Wolbert Burgess, R.N., D.N.Sc., has a B.S. from Boston University, a M.S from the University of Maryland, a D.N.Sc. from Boston University, 1966 and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of San Diego, 2005. She is currently a Professor of Nursing at Boston College, licensed as an advanced practice nurse in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, where she also maintains prescriptive authority and is a sexual assault nurse examiner.

Ann, with Lynda Lytle Holmstrom (Boston College), co-founded one of the first hospital-based crisis intervention programs for rape victims at Boston City Hospital.  Dr. Burgess has testified as an expert witness in 32 states and has received grant and pub­lished articles on the topics of rape trauma, child sexual abuse, child pornography, serial offenders, crime classification, post-traumatic stress, elder abuse, mental disorders and standards of nursing practice.

Ann served as chair of the first Advisory Council to the National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape of the National Institute of Mental Health, was a member of the 1984 U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence, on the planning committee for the 1985 Surgeon General’s Symposium on Violence, served on the National Institute of Health National Advisory Council for the Center for Nursing Research 1986-1988; and a member of the 1990 Adolescent Health Advisory Panel to the Congress of the United States Office of Technology Assessment and Chair of the National Institutes of Health AIDS and Related Research Study Section (ARRR 6), 1992-1994.  She was elected to the American Academy of Nursing in 1977, the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine in October 1994 and chaired the 1996 National Research Council’s Task Force on Violence Against Women. She was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing in 2016.  She also is the co-director of the College Warrior Athlete Initiative at Boston College that matches college athletes with veterans for weight reduction and cardio strengthening exercise program.