Caitlin O'Connell is this year’s winner of the Columbia University-Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association, Inc. /J. Margaret Ada Mutch Scholarship. A practicing pediatric nurse for eleven years at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York, she obtained a masters degree as a pediatric nurse practitioner at Columbia University. She worked as a nurse practitioner at New York University Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital in New York. After relocating to Massachusetts with her husband, she continued her career in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and decided to return to school at Northeastern University to obtain her doctorate degree in nursing practice. Caitlin recently accepted a position as an inpatient nurse practitioner on the pediatric cardiac surgical step-down unit, which gives her a chance to connect with patients and families during a very challenging time in their lives.