Julie A. Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN, is Professor of Nursing Emerita, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Her research focuses on 20th century healthcare issues, and the history of health policy as it relates to scope of practice. Her recent work examines the intersection of civil rights and health care. Her work has been funded by the NLM, NEH, and the RWJ Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Program. In 2011 she was the first historian inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau Research Hall of Fame. In 2024 she was designated a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing. She is a fellow of the American Philosophical Society.

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She is the author/editor of 4 books. Her work has been published in the NEJM, the Lancet, and Health Matrix. She has been interviewed by national and international media, including NPR, the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and J&J media campaigns. Dr. Fairman directed the $20 million RWJF Future of Nursing Scholars Program and is Director Emerita of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at Penn. She is an American Academy of Nursing Fellow, and Board member of TruMerit. Dr. Fairman served as the 2009 Scholar in Residence at the IOM and worked with the Committee on the Future of Nursing. She is the first nurse to deliver the Fielding H. Garrison Lecture (the American Association for the History of Medicine). In 2022 she was awarded a Rockefeller Bellagio Academic Writing Fellowship for 2022.