Shelby Pitts (DNP, RN, WHNP-BC), an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Nursing, has been named interim assistant dean of the school’s Entry Into Baccalaureate Practice Division, which comprises undergraduate programs in Newark, New Brunswick, and Blackwood, New Jersey. She also will continue to serve in her role as director of the RN to BS in Nursing program, which she has led since 2019.

An expert clinician, educator, and administrator, Pitts joined the School of Nursing faculty in 2013 where her positions have also included specialty director for the women’s health track. She teaches obstetrics in both graduate and undergraduate programs and her scholarship focuses on maternal and infant health outcomes among minority populations. She has more than 12 years of clinical experience as a board-certified women’s health nurse practitioner and is active in professional organizations such as Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health (NPWH), Association of Women’s Health and Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWOHNN).

Pitts earned her BSN degree from Temple University College of Nursing, MSN from Rutgers University School of Nursing, and Doctor of Nursing Practice from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Her honors include membership in Sigma, the international honor society of nursing. She is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Jersey Nursing Initiative Scholar and a Jonas Scholar in doctoral nursing.