Dr. Anna Pirsch joined the faculty in 2024 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nursing at Augsburg University. Her work focuses on the politics of health, public health nursing, and promoting sustainability within the nursing profession. Her teaching emphasizes critical consciousness, whole-person care, and addressing health inequities. She encourages students to engage in self-reflection and think critically about how healthcare systems affect marginalized populations.
Anna worked as a bedside nurse for ten years in various settings, including emergency, public health, and psychiatric settings. Anna’s research centers on nurse well-being and fostering resilience, particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is dedicated to exploring how nurses and educators can be better equipped to respond to community needs during crises. She is a collaborator on NIH-funded research seeking to understand help-seeking behaviors and the impact of gender-based violence in Indigenous and Black Women in the upper Midwest. She is a founding member of the “Archive of Health, Arts, and Spirit (AHAS),” an organization based in Maui, HI, focusing on collecting, researching, and promoting arts interventions in the wake of individual and public health crises. In addition to her academic work, Anna mentors future nursing leaders and is committed to the Twin Cities and the broader global community. Anna believes “nursing is love in action” (Lillian Wald).
EDUCATION
- PhD, Nursing (2023) University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN
- MS, Advanced Public Health Nursing, (2018) Hunter College in the City University of New York, New York, NY
- BSN, Nursing, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN
AREAS OF TEACHING RESPONSIBILITY
- Politics of Health
- Health Equity
PRESENTATIONS/PUBLICATIONS
Pirsch, A. M., Austin, R. R., Martin, L., Pieczkiewicz, D., & Monsen, K. A. (2023). Critical consciousness of public health nurses: A descriptive, comparative survey. Public Health Nursing,1–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.13245
Pirsch, A. M., Austin, R. R., Martin, L., Pieczkiewicz, D., & Monsen, K. A. (2023). Using data visualization to characterize whole‐person health of public health nurses. Public Health Nursing, 40(5), 612-620.
Austin, R.R., Rajamani, P., Jantraporn, R., Pirsch, A., Martin, K.S. (2023). Examining Standardized Consumer-generated Social Determinants of Health and Resilience Data Supported by Omaha System Terminology. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 30(11) 1852 – 1857. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocad143
Monsen, K. A., Austin, R. R., Goparaju, B., Jones, R. C., Mathiason, M. A., Pirsch, A., & Eder, M. (2021). Exploring large community- and clinically-generated datasets to understand resilience before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Nursing Scholarship. http://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12634
Claudio, E., Donahue, J., Niles, P.M., Pirsch, A., Ramos, P., Neely, I., Conceicao, R., Powel-Thomas, M., St. Vil, T., Kaplan, D. (2020) Mobilizing a public health response: Supporting the perinatal needs of New Yorkers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maternal and Child Health Journal 24(9) 1083-1088.
CURRENT CERTIFICATIONS
- ANCC Board Certified Psychiatric-Mental Health RN (PMH-BC)
- Public Health Nurse (PHN)
- Trauma Nursing Core Course (TNCC)