September Nelson

September Nelson, PhD, RN, CNL, serves as Associate Dean and an Associate Professor for the University of Portland, School of Nursing & Health Innovations. Dr. Nelson completed her PhD in Nursing Science degree at the University of Colorado in 2017 with an emphasis in Health Care Systems and her MS in Nursing in the Clinical Nurse Leader program at the University of Portland in 2008. She joined the faculty of University of Portland in 2010 as the Director of the School of Nursing Learning Resource Center and has taught in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. Her research interests include improving inclusion for gender and sexual identity diverse students and innovations in undergraduate nursing education. 

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, Nursing Science, University of Colorado
• Master of Science, Nursing, University of Portland
• Master of Science, Exercise and Movement Science, University of Oregon
• Bachelor of Science, Sports Medicine, Pepperdine University

Current Research

• Developing and measuring clinical reasoning in nursing eductation.
• Effect of high-fidelity simulation to prepare prelicensure nurses to perform post-mortem care.

Recent Publications

• Bulek, D., Nelson, S., Mason, E., & Piantoni, K. (2025). Building foundations for independent clinical reasoning in an AI era: Student experiences with the independent authentic clinical reasoning task in prelicensure nursing education.Teaching and Learning in Nursing, In Press https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2025.08.034
• Nelson, S. T. (2023). Faculty education to foster an inclusive learning environment for LGBTQ+ students. Communicating Nursing Research, 56, p117.
• Nelson, S. T. (2020). Lateral integration of care services. In C. R. King, S. O'Toole-Gerard, C. G. Rapp (Eds.), Clinical Nurse Leader: Certification Review (pp. 55-64). Springer Publishing.