People
Ashley Zampini Ritter, APRN, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing in New York and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Previously, she served as the Director of Clinical Care Research at NewCourtland, a non-profit organization providing housing, health, and social services to underserved older people in Philadelphia, PA, leading in the development, implementation, and evaluation of programs to meet complex health needs of older adults using her expertise as a nurse and researcher. This work included the design, implementation, and evaluation of a housing with supportive services program designed for older people who experience homelessness and chronic health conditions at NewCourtland and the opening of an Acute Care of the Elderly (ACE) hospital unit in Princeton, NJ.
Dr. Ritter began working as an Adult Gerontologic Primary Care Nurse Practitioner in 2010 after receiving her master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 and completed post-doctoral training in 2021 in the National Clinician Scholars Program where she also received a master’s degree in health policy. Her research and practice focus on the care of older people with complex medical and social needs including dementia, substance use disorder, homelessness, and overlapping chronic conditions. She has received grant funding from Veterans Affairs, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Her work is published in various academic journals including Health Affairs, the Journal of the American Medical Director’s Association, and the Journal of Public Health Nursing. She has received awards for her expertise and service from the University of Pennsylvania, the Eastern Pennsylvania Geriatrics Society, and Pennsbury High School.
Dr. Ritter is also the Co-Founder of Those Nerdy Girls, a non-profit science communication platform started during the COVID-19 pandemic providing factual, practical information to guide health decisions. The calming and factual approach to science communication of Those Nerdy Girls is featured in National Geographic, The New York Times, and by the World Health Organization. Those Nerdy Girls continue to provide insights on aging, mental health, reproductive health, information literacy, and other hot health issues via Facebook, Instagram, Substack, and other social media outlets. Their work received the Public Engagement Award in 2023 from the Interdisciplinary Association of Population Health Scientists.