Dr. Shannon Idzik is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the DNP program at University of Maryland School of Nursing. She has been on faculty there since 2005 and previously served as the Program Director for the Adult Gero NP program. She has worked clinically as a nurse practitioner in endocrinology, bariatric surgery, and primary care, where she managed large panels of patients with complex metabolic conditions. She currently maintains a faculty practice as a nurse practitioner in the University of Maryland Comprehensive Care Center, where she also manages patients with multiple chronic diseases. Dr. Idzik focused on obesity for her doctoral work where she developed, delivered and evaluated a program for primary care providers to improve implementation of obesity clinical practice guidelines. In addition to being an active member of many organizations, she is a recent past president of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland (NPAM) and past treasurer of the National Association of Bariatric Nurses. She was awarded AANP State Award for Excellence in 2012, was selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in 2014 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 2017. Dr. Idzik is a reviewer for numerous peer -reviewed journals and speaks regularly on diabetes around the nation.