Donna M Hallas

Donna Hallas, CPNP, FAAN, FAANP, PMHS, PPCNP-BC, PhD, is director of the Pediatrics NP Program and a Clinical Professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. She is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner (CPNP: PPCNP-BC) and a pediatric mental health specialist (PMHS). Dr. Hallas is fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN); a fellow of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners; and a fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP). Dr. Hallas is a faculty scholar of the International Qualitative Institute at Alberta, Canada. She maintains a practice as a PNP in primary care for high-risk children and for young children with behavioral problems. At NYU Meyers, she prepares pediatric nurse practitioner students to provide quality health care services for infants, children, adolescents and young adults within a family-centered framework.

Prof. Hallas’ research is practice focused and includes developing and testing interventions for vaccine hesitant and refusing individuals. The overall goal of her research is to improve healthcare outcomes for pediatric patients. Her research focus for educational initiatives includes developing and testing interventions to increase diagnostic reasoning in nurse practitioner students.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Hallas has been a frequent speaker locally and nationally on the topic of vaccine hesitancy providing guidance on ways to improve vaccine uptake. In addition, she has been frequently asked to provide guidance on how to prevent COVID-19 infections for children in all settings.

Prof. Hallas has presented at national and international conferences on the implementation of evidence-based practice in ambulatory pediatric healthcare centers. She has presented the results of a randomized controlled trial to improve the social-emotional development of toddlers and improve maternal confidence in caring for toddlers at research conferences. She presented the outcomes for a qualitative study on the social and emotional development of adolescents whose mothers passed away during their pre-teen and teenage years. She implemented a funded study on oral health care for newborns and young children. She works collaboratively with dental faculty to improve the oral health care of children from diverse populations. She conducted a randomized controlled study to reduce the incidence of vaccine hesitancy in prenatal women and mothers of newborns. Prof. Hallas also received a 2.1-million-dollar HRSA grant to develop an innovative academic clinical partnership and educational program for preceptors who clinically educate primary care nurse practitioners.

She is published in peer-reviewed journals on the oral healthcare needs of young children and has designed a new approach for oral health assessment in office-based practices regarding young children. She was a content expert for the American Academy of Pediatrics for the design of a web-based program for pediatricians, nurse practitioners, and all primary care providers on oral health assessments, management, and referrals for children and adolescents to improve the oral healthcare and status of this population. Hallas also served as an expert panel member for the systematic evaluation of oral health programs through a grant from Robert Woods Johnson. Prof. Hallas writes a monthly column for nurse practitioners which is published in Contemporary Pediatrics. She is also co-editor for the Research Methodology section of the Journal of Pediatric Health Care. In 2018, Dr. Hallas’ first textbook, Pediatric Behavioral Health for Nurse Practitioners: A Growth and Developmental Approach to Intercepting Abnormal Behaviors, received the prestigious American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award: First Place for Psychiatric Mental Health and Third Place for Child Health.  

Among her many honors, in 2022, Prof. Hallas received NYU Distinguished Teaching Award and the NYU Meyers Distinguished Teaching Award; In the 2018, she received the Nassau County Woman of the Year Award from NYS Assemblyman Representative, John Mikulin; In 2016 she received the AANP Award for Excellence in Clinical Practice (New York State) and the Nurse Practitioner of the Year award from the Nurse Practitioner Association of Long Island.

Prof. Hallas earned her PhD from Adelphi University, MSs from the State University of New York and Indiana University, and BSs from Adelphi University and the University of Hartford.