Noreen Esposito, EdD, PMHNP, FAANP

Associate Professor Emerita

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7460

Noreen Esposito Ed.D, WHNP, FNP, PMHNP has been a women’s health nurse practitioner(WHNP) since 1988, a family nurse practitioner(FNP) since 1997 and a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) since 2011. She has practiced clinically in various women’s health and psychiatric settings including college health, primary care, women veterans’ health, OB/GYN and as a sexual assault examiner. She is currently practicing in an innovative position as a PMHNP in a primary care setting bringing perinatal/women’s mood disorder services to a pediatric clinic at UNC Hospital where mothers with postpartum depression can be seen in the same place their children get care.   Dr. Esposito also maintains a private practice in the community providing psychotherapy, dialectical behavior therapy and equine-assisted psychotherapy.

Following completion of her dissertation on an inner-city freestanding birthing center, Dr. Esposito was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship through the Veterans Administration. Her research interest is in women’s experiences in health care settings and influences on their access to care. Dr. Esposito’s research has included Spanish-speaking immigrant women’s access to care in NYC, experiences of health care discrimination by African American women in the South and post sexual assault care seeking behaviors and health care experiences of substance abusing and non-using women. She is experienced in qualitative research methods including ethnography and focus groups. Her teaching interests include qualitative research, advanced practice nursing in women’s health and psychiatry, interpersonal violence and sexual assault care.

Dr. Esposito received her Master’s Degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, her doctorate in nursing education from Columbia University in NYC. She has been a faculty member at the University of South Florida and at Columbia University in the City of New York where she served as Director of the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Program from 1997-2001. She teaches in both the Masters and Doctoral Programs here at UNC-CH.