Assistant Professor Anna Pirsch receives emerging researcher award

On November 4, Assistant Professor of Nursing Anna Pirsch received the 2025 Emerging Investigator Award from the Public Health Nursing Section of the American Public Health Association at their annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The Emerging Investigator Award honors an early-career member’s work since completing a doctoral degree. 

Pirsch, who joined the Augsburg nursing faculty in 2024, said she is “inspired by our collective calling to promote healing, health equity, and love in our communities.”

In her teaching and research, Pirsch brings a focus on the politics of health, public health nursing, and promoting sustainability within the nursing profession. Her academic work centers on nurse well-being and fostering resilience, particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she is a collaborator on NIH-funded research seeking to understand help-seeking behaviors and the impact of gender-based violence in Indigenous and Black Women in the upper Midwest. She is also a founding member of the Archive of Health, Arts, and Spirit, a Hawai’i-based organization focusing on collecting, researching, and promoting arts interventions in the wake of individual and public health crises. 

“Dr. Pirsch is an invaluable asset to our department and our students,” said Associate Professor Katie Clark ’10 MAN, ’14 DNP, who chairs Augsburg’s nursing department. “Her passion and skill as both a researcher and educator embody our mission, advancing our collective understanding of how to center critical reflection and whole-person care—both within nursing practice and in transforming the systems that shape it.”

Pirsch holds a PhD in nursing from the University of Minnesota, a master’s of science in advanced public health nursing from Hunter College (CUNY), and a bachelor’s of science in nursing from the University of Minnesota. She previously worked as a bedside nurse for 10 years in emergency, public health, and psychiatric settings.