Anessa Foxwell, PhD, MBE is a nurse scientist at the PAIR (Palliative and Advanced Illness Research) Center at the Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Foxwell is an instructor at Penn Nursing where she teaches palliative care and bioethics. Additionally, she continues a clinical practice working in the Penn Medicine Oncology Evaluation Center. Previously, Foxwell was a founding member of the Inpatient Palliative Care Service at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, providing inpatient consultation as a nurse practitioner for those with serious illness.
Dr. Foxwell was named a 2022 Hospice and Palliative Nurses Foundation Emerging Leaders and was honored as a Fellow in Palliative Care Nursing by HPNA in 2023. Dr. Foxwell earned her PhD and MBE from Penn Nursing. Her dissertation was focused on clinician distress trajectories when caring for seriously ill hospitalized patients. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Penn Nursing, supported by Dr. Connie Ulrich’s grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, examining moral distress in nurses during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Her doctoral and postdoctoral training included a focus on rigorous qualitative and mixed methodologies.