APNA Annual Conference Program & Schedule

APNA President’s Address

Building on Strengths: A Resiliency Journey to Improve Wellness & Advance Care
Thursday, October 16, 9:00am Central
Allyson Matney Neal, DNP, PMHNP-BC, PMHCNS-BC, CPNP

Dr. Allyson Neal is a board-certified advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nurse (APRN) with expertise in neuroplasticity and its relationship to resilience, with a particular emphasis on wellness skills developed and taught in nontraditional settings. She serves as Assistant Dean of Graduate Programs and Clinical Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. When not working, she loves spending time with her family and rescue fur baby, Sissy Grace.

Allyson has represented the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) on the Licensure, Accreditation, Certification, and Education (LACE) Network since 2018. She also served as APNA’s representative to the National Task Force for Quality Nurse Practitioner Education Criteria for Evaluation of Nurse Practitioner Programs from 2019 to 2025. In addition, she held leadership roles within APNA as Associate Chair and Chair of the Scholarly Review Committee. In October 2025, she assumed the role of APNA President.

Adam Markel

Adam Markel, JD, is a #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author, resilience researcher, organizational strategist, TEDx speaker, and Co-Founder and Chief Researcher at WORKWELL, a research and advisory firm focused on workplace resilience, culture, and sustainable performance. A former commercial attorney and C-suite leader, he brings more than two decades of experience helping organizations navigate change and strengthen performance in high-stress, high-stakes environments. His research and advisory work are informed by years of organizational engagements and workplace resilience data collected from more than 27,000 participants across leadership, practitioner, operational, and frontline roles. Adam translates resilience science, stress physiology, nervous system regulation, and behavior change into practical, research-informed strategies that help clinicians, leaders, and teams reduce burnout risk, build adaptive capacity, and perform sustainably under pressure effectively.