Lorraine Mongiello

In addition to my position here at Post, I am program director of The Diabetes Care Center at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. The program I developed at St. Charles is a comprehensive diabetes self-management and training program for people with type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. My staff and I treat over 700 people each year. I have been able to integrate my two positions by enabling interns and student volunteers from Post to come to St. Charles for practical experience in the outpatient setting.

Lucy D. Alexander

During the many years that I have been in nursing I have held numerous positions in both practice and education, but my passion has always been teaching. I believe this passion derives from my love for learning which profoundly influences my life. My professional degrees were earned at Adelphi University. My areas of expertise include ethics, leadership, nursing theories, informatics, and qualitative research methodologies especially hermeneutic phenomenology. My research interests include concept analysis, nursing language, metaphors of practice, job satisfaction and advocacy.

I retired from a full-time position as Assistant Director of Nursing at Huntington Hospital in 2000, a position I held for 10 years. I am especially proud of several accomplishments in my career. The first began in 1993 when, in collaboration with a gerontologist I participated in the design and was responsible for the implementation and evaluation of an ACE - acute care for the elderly unit. The primary aim of the unit was to prevent the functional decline frequently associated with hospitalization in the elderly. This was the largest “change project” of my career and thanks to a committed and dedicated nursing staff the unit was most successful and became a model for other hospitals in the metropolitan New York area. The second achievement took place in 1997 when I was invited to present a research method I designed and tested as part of my doctoral dissertation at the International Qualitative Research Conference in Bournemouth, England. During this trip I had an opportunity to dialogue with researchers from all over the world and to meet and lunch with several internationally known phenomenologists.

I have given time to community health fairs, screening programs and served on several American Heart Association, Nassau Chapter Committees. I also served as a board member for the Huntington Youth Council for ten years. In 1999 I was appointed to serve as a member of the Surrogate Decision Making Committee by the New York State Mental Health Commissioner. I also serve as a member of the board of directors of the Visiting Nurse Service Hospice of Suffolk and as chairperson of the ethics committee.

Thomas J. Knichel

Recently I was appointed to a new position as Director of Imaging Services at Mercy Medical Center, in Rockville Center, NY. I credit my ability to handle new and exciting challenges with my strong education, work experience and work ethic. As a mentor I now see on a daily basis how I can have an impact on the professional careers of technologists. I have become more cognizant of the importance of the role of the mentor and therefore strive to have students benefit from my experience. I am excited and honored to be part of the faculty of this university.