Keela Herr

Keela Herr, PhD, RN, FAAN, AGSF
Recipient of Distinguished Alumni Award

Dr. Keela Herr is Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty and Co-Director of the Iowa John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence in the College of Nursing at the University of Iowa. For more than 25 years, Dr. Herr has been engaged in a program of research, scholarly, and professional activities focused on the problem of pain in older adults, with emphases in assessment strategies, improving practices through translation research and end of life care. She has been a long-standing advocate for improving quality of pain care in older adults and presents nationally and internationally on strategies for improving assessment and management of pain in elders and published extensively on the topic of elder pain. She served on the 1998, 2002 and 2009 American Geriatric Society persistent pain guideline expert panels; served on the Board of Directors for the American Geriatrics Society, the American Society for Pain Management Nursing (ASPMN) and the American Pain Society. Recently, she provided leadership to determine quality measures for palliative care through the AAHPM/HPNA Measuring What Matters Initiative. Dr. Herr has received many awards for her efforts and with recent recognition receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Gerontological Nurses Association in 2012, the Jean Guveyan Lecturer Award by the ASPMN in 2013, and the Distinguished Researcher Award from the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association in 2015.