Dr. Catherine Heinlein, EdD, RN, RDN, CDE, is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California. Dr. Heinlein’s degrees in leadership, nursing, and nutrition, have allowed her the unique position to apply a holistic care approach to her patients and instruction to her students. She has been teaching at the college level for over 20 years. Dr. Heinlein’s clinical practice areas include diabetes prevention and management to individuals and groups from pre-conception to older adulthood. Dr. Heinlein serves as the Director for the Short-Term Study Abroad India program which offers a Service Learning course in Transcultural Healthcare to prepare students for their in-country experience to Kolkata, India. Since the peoples of India have taken over Dr. Heinlein’s heart, her passion is to better understand their plight from the non-communicable disease standpoint and offer longer-term assistance in empowering those who cannot afford primary prevention visits and diagnostics to manage their own lifestyle prevention and management goals. Dr. Heinlein works as Associate Director of the School of Nursing’s Neighborhood Wellness Center providing both nursing and nutrition care and education to community members. She developed the school’s Minor in Nutrition which offers a variety of courses to include Life Cycle Nutrition, Cultural Aspects of Foods and Nutrition, and Complementary and Alternative Therapies: Herbs, Dietary Supplements, and Nutrition. Dr. Heinlein’s research interests are diabetes prevention and management, nutrition implications in obesity, and lifestyle approaches to disease prevention. Her doctoral research looked at the perceptions patients had on the education they received to prepare them for nutrition outcomes of a gastric bypass surgery for the treatment of obesity. Dr. Heinlein’s Fulbright project aims to establish a diabetes prevention program at a volunteer organization and community group setting utilizing nursing students in their Community Health Nursing rotation through a Service Learning course.

Her doctoral research looked at the perceptions patients had on the education they received to prepare them for nutrition outcomes of a gastric bypass surgery for the treatment of obesity.