Leadership Team
Kyle McInnis, Sc.D.
Founding Dean
Dr. Kyle McInnis is the founding dean of Providence College’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences, where he spearheaded the creation of the School and helped establish its academic programs, faculty, and infrastructure. Under his leadership, the School launched innovative programs in nursing and health sciences and established a foundation for interdisciplinary education that brings together the health sciences, clinical practice, and the liberal arts.
McInnis previously served as founding dean of a new school of health sciences at Merrimack College, which included a nursing program. Before joining Providence College, he was provost at Johnson & Wales University, where he helped expand the university’s academic and research portfolio and led several successful health program accreditation initiatives.
McInnis spent much of his early career as a faculty member and clinical researcher in Boston’s academic medical community. His primary areas of expertise include physical activity, clinical exercise physiology, and the prevention of chronic cardiovascular and lifestyle-related diseases. He has received funding for numerous research grants and was recognized with an Honor Award from the U.S. Surgeon General for promoting children’s health.
Nancy L. Meedzan, DNP, RN, CNE, NEA-BC
Interim Dean
Dr. Nancy Meedzan is a proven leader with vast clinical knowledge and a demonstrated commitment to high-quality nursing education. She comes to Providence College from the Cummings School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, where she was Dean since January 2019.
After graduating from Boston College in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, Meedzan began a nearly 20-year nursing career working as a registered nurse at several Rhode Island and Massachusetts hospitals and medical facilities. A committed scholar whose primary interest is in global health, Meedzan is co-investigator of an international study on the impact of COVID-19 on patients living with HIV. She is co-editor of the textbook Global Health Nursing in the 21st Century. She has taken students on short-term immersion experiences to Guatemala, South Africa, and the Dominican Republic to study the delivery of compassionate nursing care in places challenged to provide healthcare resources.
Deborah Tessitore McManus, Ph.D., MSN, RN
Chair, Department of Nursing
Dr. McManus is an accomplished clinician, scholar, and academic leader with extensive experience in nursing education and program administration. She previously served as Associate Dean of Nursing at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS), where she provided executive leadership for undergraduate nursing programs including curriculum oversight, accreditation preparation and compliance, academic policy development, faculty governance, and student progression initiatives. She also served as Program Administrator, reporting to the Massachusetts Board of Nursing (MBORN) on program operations, such as student progression and NCLEX tracking.
Dr. McManus brings decades of service across diverse healthcare and community settings. She has served as a school nurse for more than 20 years, and her clinical work extends to pediatric education, community health consulting, and clinical practice in hospital and other healthcare environments. A dedicated educator, her teaching expertise includes foundational nursing practice, mental health nursing, professional role development, simulation, and curriculum integration. She is committed to preparing compassionate, competent, practice-ready nurses while supporting the well-being of each nursing student. Her scholarly work explores the intersection of spirituality, well-being, and nursing education, with a particular focus on aging and resilience.
Todd Olszewski, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Health Sciences
Dr. Todd Olszewski has been a faculty member at Providence College since 2011 and currently serves as chair for the Department of Health Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in History from Yale University with a concentration in the history of science and medicine. He was previously a DeWitt Stetten, Jr., Fellow in the History of Biomedical Sciences and Technology at the National Institutes of Health before arriving at PC. From 2018 to 2023, Dr. Olszewski served as associate director for the Center for Teaching Excellence at Providence College.
As a historian of the biomedical sciences and health policy, he examines how basic and clinical research discoveries have informed patient care, impacted health outcomes, and shaped public perceptions of health care. He was the recipient of the Stanley Jackson Prize for 2017, awarded to the best article to appear in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences in the previous three years. More recently, he has examined the history of current health care and science policy debates, particularly political partisanship as it pertains to health reform efforts. In 2021, he published Today’s Health Care Issues: Democrats and Republicans, a book he co-authored with department colleague Robert Hackey and a dozen HPM student collaborators.
