Professor Hermi Hewitt, OD, PhD, MPH, BScN, RN, RM, FAAN

Professor Hermi Hewitt is a distinguished nurse educator, researcher, author, and healthcare leader with an extensive career dedicated to advancing nursing and midwifery education, research, and professional development in Jamaica and the Caribbean. She currently brings this wealth of leadership to her role as a Council Member, where she serves on the Management Committee and as Co-Chair of both the Legislative and Curriculum Committees, contributing her profound academic and regulatory expertise to the advancement of professional standards, educational curricula, and modern nursing legislation.

She received her foundational training at the University Hospital of the West Indies, subsequently earning a BSc in Nursing from the University of the West Indies, a Master of Public Health from Tulane University, and a PhD from the University of Iowa, alongside advanced studies at Harvard University and the University of Miami. Professor Hewitt has held premier academic appointments, serving as Head of Nursing Education at Excelsior Community College, Head and Director of the UWI School of Nursing, Mona (UWISON), and Associate Dean and Professor at the Caribbean School of Nursing, UTech. Throughout her tenure, she championed undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral nursing programs, built robust international academic partnerships with institutions including the University of Ottawa, Duke University, and Toronto Metropolitan University. She led also UWISON’s historic designation as a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre.

As Principal Investigator in Jamaica, she led the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Nursing Research (NIH/NINR)-funded Mother and Daughter HIV Risk Reduction Project, a collaborative research initiative involving New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. Her personal research interests span Caribbean nursing history, clinical care innovations, and mental health perspectives. An accomplished author, she has written several defining books, including Trailblazers in Nursing Education: A Caribbean Perspective and Excelsior Community College Nursing Education Programme: Vision to Reality, amongst other notable publications. In recognition of her transformative contributions, Professor Hewitt was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Distinction (OD), inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), and honored with the UWI Vice Chancellor Award for Excellence and the Caribbean Community of Retired Persons (CCRP) Living Legend Award.