Department of Nursing

Melinda Bogardus, PhD, MSN, FNP-BC, RN, DipACLM began her education in liberal arts with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an undergraduate, she took several Spanish courses, practiced Spanish and learned about history and culture through a study abroad program in Mexico City, Mexico, and completed an internship in eastern North Carolina as an outreach worker serving mostly Spanish-speaking migrant and seasonal farmworkers. After working at an HIV/AIDS hotline and later in an urban health center and taking numerous science courses, Dr. Bogardus returned to school and obtained a Master of Science in Nursing with a family nurse practitioner (FNP) concentration from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She became nationally certified as an FNP by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Dr. Bogardus ultimately earned a PhD in Nursing from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN. Her qualitative dissertation examined the experiences and well-being of Mexican immigrant women living in western North Carolina.

Dr. Bogardus is a member and vice-president of the Appalachian State University Phi Psi Chapter of Sigma, a nursing honor society, and a member of the Department of Nursing’s Curriculum Committee. She also belongs to the American Nurses Association, the North Carolina Nurses Association, and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM). She became an ACLM certified diplomate in 2022.

Dr. Bogardus has practiced for over two decades in a variety of outpatient health care settings in Florida, California, and North Carolina. She has largely provided primary care and public health services with an emphasis on promoting healthy lifestyle habits and addressing social determinants of health, but has also practiced in specialty areas, i.e. adolescent medicine, women’s health, HIV/AIDS management, and farmworker health. She has mostly worked with underserved patients across the lifespan and has served many Spanish-speaking and immigrant patients throughout her career. Currently, Dr. Bogardus provides primary care services on a volunteer basis in Ashe and Alleghany Counties for a farmworker health program.

Dr. Bogardus has conducted research with her colleagues on the impacts of a whole-foods plant-based diet on health and well-being, brief mindfulness practices on resilience, and an educational module on knowledge and valuing of structural competence in health professional students, most particularly nursing students. She is currently working on research on food insecurity and health in Latino/a/x people living in NW North Carolina.

Dr. Bogardus prepares students for nursing practice in all three of the nursing department's programs of study (BSN, RN-BSN, and MSN in Nursing Education).