Welcome to the first Family Practice & Community Psychiatry Nurse Practitioner Fellowship in New York State!
Our Mission
The mission of the Community Healthcare Network Nurse Practitioner Fellowship is to support nurse practitioners from the transition of their academic program to practice while preparing them for the difficulties of caring for patients in medically underserved areas. The fellowship will be able to build upon this essential model of workforce development, expanding and improving its scope, with the aim of developing a cohort of experienced and capable clinicians and team of preceptors equipped to train and support newly licensed NPs as they enter the community health workforce. This program provides an educational environment where NPs can get hands-on experience practicing in a community-based organization, while receiving
ongoing education and supervision meant to further their clinical knowledge and understanding of the complex needs of medically underserved communities and populations.
Our Nurse Practitioner Fellowship Program is committed to pursuing excellence. We successfully received accreditation from the National Nurse Practitioner Residency & Fellowship Training Consortium (NNPRFTC) in June 2021, demonstrating that we meet national standards for quality.
Our Nurse Practitioner Fellowship Program is in the process of reaccreditation through the Consortium for Advance Practice Providers. If you would like to provide public comment as part of our Reaccreditation Process, please visit the Accreditation Status and Public Comment Website here.
Jessica Marchini, DNP, NP-C
Director of the NP Fellowship Program
Jessica Marchini is the Director of Community Healthcare Network’s Nurse Practitioner Fellowship Program. Her background as a Registered Nurse is in emergency medicine and psychiatry. After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with her DNP, she started her career at CHN as a FNP Fellow. After fellowship, she continued as a primary care provider at CHN’s Harlem Health Center. Dr. Marchini is passionate about providing education and support to new NPs through the Fellowship to foster transition to practice in community medicine. She believes community medicine is integral to the delivery of accessible quality health care and addressing health inequities.
Maria Pizzirusso, DNP, FNP-BC, MPH
Deputy Director of the NP Fellowship Program
Maria Pizzirusso is board-certified family nurse practitioner. Her academic and clinical interests are health promotion and disease prevention in people living with HIV/AIDS. She also has specialty training in neurology. She completed her doctoral training at the Columbia University School of Nursing in 2020. Prior to this, she earned a Master of Public Health from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2012. While working in primary care during her first year of practice, she voluntarily deployed to assist with the COVID-19 pandemic response in New York City, working in some of the hardest hit areas in each of the five boroughs. After her deployment, she returned to practice at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she worked as a neurology nurse practitioner. In her time at Mount Sinai, she worked on several research projects and had the opportunity to share her work in an oral presentation at the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care’s annual conference in 2017. Maria is passionate about training the next generation of nurse practitioners to face the growing challenges of providing quality primary care. She believes care should be comprehensive with a focus on disease prevention. She also believes the key to success with any intervention is educating her patients about their illness and treatment plans, something that is unfortunately lacking in many healthcare delivery settings.
Anna Foster, PMHNP-BC
Deputy Director of the Community Psychiatry NP Fellowship Program
Anna Foster is the Deputy Director of the Community Psychiatry Nurse Practitioner Fellowship Program. She completed the CHN NP Fellowship in 2018 and is passionate about the positive impact the fellowship year had on her early practice. She has worked full time as a psychiatric nurse practitioner at CHN ever since, currently providing services at the Washington Heights and Williamsburg clinics. Anna received her Masters of Science in Nursing from Seattle University. She is dedicated to the role psychiatric NPs play in improving access to high quality psychiatric treatment in community psychiatry and integrated care
Yuliana Perez, MSHA
NP Fellowship Program Manager
Yuliana Perez is the Program Administrator of the Family Medicine Residency Program and Program Manager for New York's inaugural Nurse Practitioner Fellowship Program. A Fordham University graduate with a Master of Science in Health Administration, Yuliana has dedicated her career to the healthcare sector, contributing to Community Healthcare Network since 2013. Before her current roles, Yuliana played a pivotal role in Health Literacy, crafting concise materials for providers and patients, when the Marketplace (also known as Affordable Health Plans or Obama Care) piloted. In her free time, you will find Yuliana crafting, watching all the latest films, playing sports, and hiking.
Caroline Dorsen, PhD, FNP-BC (she/hers)
Clinical Liaison Lead (Primary Care)
As the Clinical Liaison Lead for Primary Care, Dr. Dorsen serves as the counterpart to academic dean and facilitates information exchange between the primary care or behavioral health NPR and the academic advanced nursing education partner and ensures preceptors function as program partners. Dr. Caroline Dorsen is the Associate Dean of Advanced Practice and Clinical Partnerships at Rutgers School of Nursing, where she is an associate professor of nursing and public health. Dr. Dorsen was a faculty member and academic leader at NYU Meyers College of Nursing for 15 years prior to coming to Rutgers in the Fall, 2020. Dr. Dorsen’s passion is the interface between health and social justice. She is a nationally and internationally recognized expert and scholar on sexual and gender minority health, the immediate past Nursing Chair for GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality, and a Senior Associate Editor of the journal Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health. She is a member of numerous diversity and equity taskforces including for ENRS and the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for Community Health Network (CHN) in NYC. In 2020, Caroline was the recipient of NYU’s Martin Luther King Faculty Award sponsored by the President and Provost. She was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2021.
Stephen Ferrara, DNP, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN
Health Education Specialist
As one of the Health Education Specialists, Dr. Ferrara collaborates with academic clinical team to assess the clinical entities’ capacities of the grant and infrastructure prior to curriculum development and provides professional activities of preceptors and other clinical staff based on needs assessment. Dr. Stephen Ferrara is an actively practicing Family Nurse Practitioner, executive, and faculty member. He combines years of clinical experience along with health policy development to increase access to nurse practitioner-partnered care in New York State by serving as executive director of the Nurse Practitioner Association New York State. He is Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs and Associate Professor at Columbia University's School of Nursing where he leads the nurse practitioner primary care faculty practice and clinical simulation. He also serves as the executive director of Jonas Nursing and Veterans Healthcare. Dr. Ferrara has received many awards for his health policy work with his most recent being inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Nursing in 2020.
Nitin Gumaste, MA, M.Ed.
Health Information Technology Coordinator
As the Health Information Technology Coordinator, Nitin’s experience in telehealth, health informatics, and HIPPA compliance assures successful IT models are incorporated into the community-based clinical activities of the new NPs. Nitin Gumaste, M.Ed., (Teachers College, Columbia University) is an Instructional Designer and Educational Technologist with over 16 years of experience in hospital care, academia, non-governmental organizations, and the pharmaceutical sector. Most recently, he has consulted for Cleveland Clinic, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the International Rescue Committee. Nitin's primary focus is developing learning solutions that lead to the "a-ha!" moment, where learners are able to effectively translate the knowledge they have gained into intended actions using technology as an aid to achieving learning outcomes. In his spare time, Nitin enjoys swimming, taking road trips across the country, and reading.
Marlene E. McHugh DNP,FNP-BC, AG/ACNP-BC,ACHPN, FPCN
Health Education Specialist
As one of the Health Education Specialists, Dr. McHugh collaborates with academic clinical team to assess the clinical entities’ capacities of the grant and infrastructure prior to curriculum development and provides professional activities of preceptors and other clinical staff based on needs assessment. Dr. McHugh is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Columbia University in NYC. She maintains a faculty practice in the Department of Family and Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, where she co-developed the Palliative Care Service. Ms. McHugh has a clinical nursing background in medical surgical nursing, oncology, critical care and as well as primary care. She has worked in academic family practice programs in NYC, since graduation as an FNP. She received her graduate degree as a FNP and her doctoral degree from Columbia University and she hold a post master’s certificate as an Adult Geriatric/Acute Care Nurse Practitioner from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a certified ELNEC Trainer (End-of Life Nursing Education) from the American Nurses Association and completed the Wharton Nursing Leaders Program in 2011. Dr. McHugh has presented nationally and internationally on the topic of palliative care, has published numerous articles and chapters on pain and palliative care. In 2014 she was inducted as a Fellow in Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing by the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association and in 2019 she was the recipient of the ANA-NY award for excellence in practice.
Jeanie Tse, MD
Clinical Liaison Lead (Psychology)
As the Clinical Liaison Lead for Psychology, Dr. Tse serves as the counterpart to academic dean and facilitates information exchange between the primary care or behavioral health NPR and the academic advanced nursing education partner and ensures preceptors function as program partners. Jeanie Tse, MD, is the new Senior Medical Director at Fountain House, a clubhouse community of people with serious mental illnesses in New York City. She is an Associate Professor at the NYU School of Medicine, teaching in the NYU Public Psychiatry Fellowship Program. She previously served as the Chief Medical Officer at ICL, a New York City not-for-profit serving people with mental illness and developmental disabilities where she worked for 15 years. She led ICL and its partners on award-winning integrated health initiatives, including development of the East New York Health Hub in an underserved Brooklyn neighborhood, and integration of primary care into Assertive Community Treatment and other behavioral health settings. She is past president of the NY Chapters of the American Association of Psychiatric Administrators and the American Association of Community Psychiatrists, and an alumnus of the National Council for Behavioral Health’s Psychiatry Leadership Program. She is the co-editor of “A Case-Based Approach to Public Psychiatry,” a text that explores the foundational principles of community mental health services and the care needs of special populations. She has a special interest in disrupting the impact of trauma on health outcomes, with an overarching aim to “bridge the gap” between academic psychiatry and the clinical challenges of disadvantaged communities.
