Illumination Speaker Series 2026

Sharon M. Weinstein, MS, RN, CRNI-R©, CSP, FAAN

Illumination Series Event Title: Nursing Unstoppable: Reclaiming Our Voice, Our Value, Our Profession

Presentation Description: Nurses are the backbone of healthcare and yet too often, their voices go unheard, or their value goes unrecognized. Nursing Unstoppable is a powerful, energizing experience that reignites pride in the profession and equips nurses with the tools to advocate, influence, and lead change from wherever they stand. Through bold storytelling, real-world strategies, and purpose-driven engagement, participants learn how to elevate their impact, strengthen their boundaries, amplify their voice, and reclaim the profession they love. This program is in service to a movement to restore the power, purpose, and possibility of nursing.

Presenter Bio:

Sharon M. Weinstein is a global nursing leader, TEDx speaker, and award-winning healthcare innovator with over 40 years of clinical, administrative, and academic experience. Founder of SMW Group and the Global Education Development Institute, she transforms nurse leaders, teams, and organizations through her expertise in stress reduction, resilience, and human performance. One of only five nurses worldwide holding both FAAN and CSP designations, Sharon is an adjunct faculty at UIC, a partner at Diagnostic Think, and a thought leader featured in 170+ peer-reviewed articles and 26 books, including Healing Healthcare and Harmony by Design. Her accolades—including the Nell J. Watts Lifetime Achievement Award, the Frist Humanitarian Award, and the Bayer Award—reflect a career dedicated to empowering nurses, elevating healthcare, and creating lasting impact worldwide.

Gale Adcock, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN

Illumination Series Presentation Title: What They Don’t Know Will Kill Us

Presentation Description: Get energized in this 90-minute interactive session with a nurse on the front lines of elected office since 2007. Leave with a new understanding of your role as an advocate for health and healthcare. This is a live event and will not be recorded.

Presenter Bio: 

Gale Adcock is a family nurse practitioner in her second term in the North Carolina Senate following 8 years in the state House and 7 years on the Cary, NC town council. Adcock is the first APRN to serve in the 170-member NC  legislature and the first nurse to serve in the state Senate.

Senator Adcock models collaboration among individuals of different experiences, perspectives, and ideologies, describing her style of bipartisanship as “living in the aisle”. She has championed legislation to expand access to care and remove barriers to practice for pharmacists, physician assistants, behavioral health therapists, psychologists, and APRNs. She believes clinicians’ skill in patient advocacy is their roadmap for policy influence at every level.

From 1994 through 2020, Adcock was the chief health officer for global software company SAS, managing operations of its large onsite primary care center. She has a nursing diploma, a BSN from East Carolina University, and an MSN and FNP certificate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is adjunct faculty at East Carolina University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, Wake Forest University, and Case Western Reserve University. She is past president of the NC Nurses Association, past chair of the NC Council of Nurse Practitioners, past chair of the NC Center for Nursing, and a former member of the NC Board of Nursing. Adcock is a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, a Distinguished Policy Fellow of the National Academies of Practice, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Nelson J. Dunlap, J.D.

Illumination Series Presentation Title: Empowering Excellence: The Political Determinants of Health

Presentation Description: Health outcomes begin before the bedside, by the upstream decisions that govern access, resources, and power. The political determinants of health are the policies, systems, and civic forces that strongly influence the downstream social and clinical conditions we work to address every day. For healthcare leaders, understanding these determinants is part of our responsibility to patients, teams, and communities. In this one-hour Illumination Series session, participants will build a clear, usable framework to define, identify, and leverage the political determinants of health within their own sphere of influence. Whether your influence lives in direct care, education, operations, or executive leadership. Nelson Dunlap, JD will guide you through naming and tracking key healthy equity concepts across American legislative history, highlighting pivotal moments and provisions that have shaped equity, access, and outcomes over time. Most importantly, this session will support you in translating insight into practice, strengthening your ability to confidently elevate health equity concerns in clinical and professional spaces. This is an invitation to widen your frame and lead upstream! Join us to help shape better, brighter tomorrow for the people and communities we serve.

Presenter Bio:

Nelson J. Dunlap, J.D. currently serves as the Vice President for Public Policy & External Affairs at Meharry Medical College as well as the Vice Dean and Assistant Professor in the School of Global Health. In these roles he helps to lead health policy initiatives, foster the development of new partner relationships, and engage in innovative and groundbreaking research, all while keeping health equity centered at the core of the mission.

As a dedicated health policy advocate, author, and experienced public speaker, Mr. Dunlap has utilized every opportunity in his career to fight on behalf of marginalized communities and push for the advancement of health equity. His commitment to the pursuit of health equity has recently been recognized as he was named to the de Beaumont Foundation’s 40 Under 40 in Public Health. Before joining Meharry, Mr. Dunlap served as the Chief-of-Staff for the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine where he helped to lead the government relations and health policy initiatives of the institution. Along with this role, Mr. Dunlap also served as the Senior Advisor for
Legislative Affairs for the Health Equity Leadership and Exchange Network. In this position, Mr. Dunlap directed the
grassroots efforts of the network as well as oversaw any research or reports published by the network.

Beginning with his selection to serve as the Editor-in-Chief of the DePaul Journal of Health Care Law and coupled with his tenure as an Executive Student Board Member of the Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute, Mr. Dunlap has long understood and embraced the vital role that academia can play in leading the charge in addressing health disparities. Mr. Dunlap’s passion for shaping the minds of the next generation of learners and leaders, and doing so with an eye towards leveraging the law and the political determinants of health, has afforded him the opportunity to provide numerous speaking engagements and author a number of publications centered around health policy and health disparities.

While Nelson Dunlap is originally from Austin, Texas, he is a recent transplant to the city of Nashville, Tennessee, where he and his wife, a registered nurse, hope to become integral members of the thriving health care community. Mr. Dunlap graduated from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and received his Juris Doctor from DePaul University College of Law.