Biography

Dr. Denise Coppa is a nationally board-certified Primary Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and a Family Nurse Practitioner. Her teaching experience spans 30 years at URI, including courses on advanced pathophysiology, pharmacotherapeutics, adult and pediatric physical assessment, and courses in the adult primary care and family nurse practitioner concentrations. She supervises NP students in the Pediatric Primary Care Clinic at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and at the Rhode Island Free Clinic, serving medically uninsured people. Dr. Coppa’s clinical interests focus on the care of medically underserved clients. She is currently Principal Investigator of the federally funded Academic Clinical Partnership Grant. Her research interests stream from that project and include primary health care work-force transformation, home based primary health care and education of nurse practitioner students.

Dr. Coppa is an avid champion for advancing full scope of practice for nurse practitioners and transforming the APRN workforce to enhance nurse practitioner education for the medically underserved. Her contributions have been recognized through her selection as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and, more recently, as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. She is a past recipient of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners State NP Advocate Award and the RI State Nurses Association President’s Award for Leadership. Dr. Coppa is a founding member and on the board of directors for the Nurse Practitioner Alliance of Rhode Island. She is the RI state representative for the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She is research trustee to the international organization, Therapeutic Touch International Associates. In addition, she has an appointment as adjunct clinical instructor at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University, Department of Pediatrics.