Director for the Doctor of Nursing Practice — Family Nurse Practitioner Program
Associate Clinical Professor in the Family Caregiving Institute

Kathryn SexsonKathryn Sexson is the director for the Doctor of Nursing Practice — Family Nurse Practitioner Degree Program and an associate clinical professor for the Family Caregiving Institute at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. Her teaching expertise focuses on advanced family nurse practitioner practice, pathophysiology, pharmacology, acute care, geriatrics and family caregiving.

An ardent supporter for translating research into practice, Sexson is in process of disseminating her most recent discovery involving family caregivers and the impact of visitation practices following admission to assisted living. She continues to collaborate with the National Resource Center for Alaska Native Elders on family caregiving in rural Alaska.

Prior to her UC Davis appointment, Sexson worked as an assistant professor in both the undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Alaska Anchorage School of Nursing. In 2008, she established Denali Family HealthCare, where she practiced as an independent family nurse practitioner specializing in geriatrics until 2018. Previous to her role as a nurse practitioner, she worked in critical care and transitional care. As a hospital leader, she managed the Medical and Oncology, Orthopedics and Surgical, Transitional Care, Social Work and Continuum of Care Departments for Alaska Regional Hospital. She previously partnered with the school and AARP as a content expert on the AARP No Longer Home Alone Caregiving Project.

As an advocate for older adults and their families, Sexson served on the interdisciplinary committee to develop the “Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment,” a provider order form that communicates a patient’s end-of-life choices, emergency medical, personal and other health care providers. She also served on the Alaska Statewide Access to Care for Medicare Recipients Task Force, which resulted in the development of Senior Care Clinics throughout the state. Sexson served in leadership roles as a John A. Hartford Scholar as well as with the National Student Nurses Association, the Alaska Nurses Association and the Alaska Nurse Practitioner Association.

She is certified as a family nurse practitioner and obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1996 and Master of Science in Nursing in 2004, both from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy in 2014 from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

Sexson has presented at several national conferences, including the Western Institute for Nursing, the Gerontological Society of America, the Alaska Nurse Practitioner Association, the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses Association. Her work has been published in the American Journal for Nursing, Research in Gerontological Nursing and the Gerontologist.


Contact Information: Phone: 916-703-3705  | Email: kesexson@ucdavis.edu