Influential Woman · Higher Education - Nursing
Trysha Hopkins
DNP, CRNP, FNP-C
Director of Nursing, Gannon University
Wattsburg, PA
Her Story
About Trysha
Trysha Hopkins serves as Director of Nursing at Gannon University, where she began in October 2025 and assumed her current title in February. A nurse since 2010 and nurse practitioner since earning her credentials, she focuses her clinical work on cardiology while also teaching the next generation of nurses. Hopkins holds an associate degree from Mercyhurst, a bachelor's degree from Slippery Rock University completed in December 2011, a master's degree in family nurse practitioner studies from Gannon University in 2013, and a doctorate from Gannon in 2021. She maintains active memberships in AANP and Sigma Theta Tau and continues to practice clinically every other week. Hopkins attributes her professional success to an enduring desire to never stop learning and emphasizes the importance of empathy in nursing, noting that every patient is somebody's family member. She advises balancing work with family priorities and encourages new nurses to remain adaptable while upholding the core values of the profession.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Trysha
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think it is that desire to never stop learning. If I could be have the money to be a professional student. It's definitely that desire to keep learning. Never stop learning.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Somebody had told me that is always somebody's mom, dad, brother, sister. So when you go into work, that dementia patient who's screaming at you is somebody's dad, so don't scream back. Treat others as you want to be treated. As a nurse, if you want somebody to come in and not change your bedsheets for 2 weeks, then do that to the next person. Put your best foot forward every day because it is literally somebody's life in your hands.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
You will see people on the best of days and the worst of days, and you personally will have the best days of your life and the worst days. We're there for people on every single type of day. Sometimes it's hard to go in for that next shift, but you never know what successes and recoveries and miracles you'll see the next day.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
In the education realm, it's the change in what we know from the traditional learning to a new type of student. What is resonating with them in the world of AI and knowledge at their fingertips, and there is a different type of learner that we are trying to adapt to, and trying to make sure that they are fulfilled while making sure we keep up the traditions of what nursing is at its core. You're not just coming in for a paycheck, and keeping that empathy and desire to keep learning forever.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Pretty well, it's family, and empathy. Just being a nurse, that empathy from some this is always going to be somebody's somebody. So it's somebody's mom, somebody's dad, and putting that into practice, how would you treat your parent when you're practicing? Family is not something that can ever be replaced. Children grow up, you're never going to get that time back, so it's definitely a balance between work and family.
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