Academic and Professional Background:

Dr. Christopher Blackwell attended the University of Central Florida (UCF), where he performed in the UCF Marching Knights and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) Degree in May of 2000. His undergraduate clinical specialization was in emergency/trauma nursing and from 2000-2002, he practiced as a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Department of Florida Hospital Orlando while also working on his Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree, specializing as an Adult Nurse Practitioner (ANP).

He completed a residency in adult primary care and received his MSN in 2001. He then practiced as a nurse practitioner in infectious disease (ID) for Greater Orlando ID Specialists at Health Central Hospital, where he treated hospitalized patients with various communicable diseases and  worked on staff in the practice's HIV and outpatient ID clinic. In August of 2002, he returned to UCF to begin work on a Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) in Public Affairs. He chose Health as his major research concentration area and began conducting social science research related to health and social disparity issues for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) persons and completed his Ph.D. in 2005. In 2013, he completed post-graduate studies in Adult-Gerontology Acute Care at the University of Florida and an additional nurse practitioner clinical residency in critical/intensive care.

Dr. Blackwell's past research has been funded by the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, UCF's College of Health & Public Affairs, the Evelyn McKnight Research Fund through the Florida Nurses Foundation, the E21 Creative Studio Convergence Laboratory, and the Gurecki Foundation. In 2021, Dr. Blackwell and colleagues earned a grant from the Center for Behavioral Health Research and Training in UCF’s School of Social Work to explore overlapping preventative knowledge, attitudes, and practices among Latino men who have sex with men on the cardiometabolic and coronavirus disease syndemic. In addition, Dr. Blackwell is a co-investigator for a 2021 grant funded by the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation evaluating informal on-line and in-person educational sessions designed to enhance STD prevention knowledge among high-risk persons.

Dr. Blackwell's scholarship has been published in several prestigious international research and scholarly journals including Issues in Mental Health Nursing, the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, the Journal for Nurse Practitioners, the American Journal for Nurse Practitioners, the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, the Journal of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health Research, the Journal of Health & Social Policy, the Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, the American Journal of Men's Health, the Journal of Transcultural Nursing, the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Youth, the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, the Journal of Social Service Research, The Nurse Practitioner: The American Journal of Primary Healthcare, the Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal, Public Health Nursing, Social Work in Public Health, Clinical Simulation in Nursing, and the Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

His academic textbook publications include chapters in the Comprehensive Handbook on Social Work and Social Welfare: Human Behavior in the Social Environment (2008), Service eLearning: Educating for Citizenship (2008), The War Against Domestic Violence (2009 and 2014) and Connecting Social Policy to Fields of Practice (2013). Dr. Blackwell serves as an editorial reviewer for the Journal of Homosexuality, Journal of Nursing Scholarship, Culture, Health, and Sexuality, Sexuality and Culture, AIDS Care, the Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, the Journal of Transcultural Nursing, the Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, the International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, and the American Journal of Men's Health. Dr. Blackwell is also a Consulting Editor for the Journal of American College Health and Associate Editor for the Journal for Nurse Practitioners. He also presents his research at national and international professional conferences.

In 2016, Dr. Blackwell was inducted as a Fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP). The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) awarded him their 2017 national award for Outstanding Nurse Practitioner Educator. In October of 2019, he was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), a career-pinnacle accolade. Dr. Blackwell is a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, Golden Key National Honor Society, NONPF, and the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association, for which he is an expert representative for the profession of Nursing through public relations, media, and press outlets. In addition, he is board-certified nationally through the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) as both an Adult Nurse Practitioner (ANP-BC) and Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGACNP-BC).

Dr. Blackwell served as the Vice Chairman on the Content Expert Panel for the ANCC Examination for Adult Nurse Practitioners until the program was retired. He has also served as a Field Test examinee and currently serves as an item writer for ANCC's Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Board Certification Examination. He is also nationally certified as a Nurse Educator (CNE) through the National League for Nursing (NLN) and is a nationally elected Commissioner on the NLN's CNE Board of Directors and writing panelist for both the CNE and CNEcl exams.

Dr. Blackwell is currently appointed to the Faculty of the College of Nursing at UCF. He earned Tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor in the Fall of 2012 and became the Program Director for the College's graduate Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Programs in 2016. In 2010, 2015, and 2021, he received the College of Nursing's Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award and was a College of Nursing Teaching Incentive Program Award Winner in 2011, 2017, and 2023. He won the College's Research Incentive Award in 2016 and Excellence in Research Award in 2017. Clinically, Dr. Blackwell maintains his nurse practitioner practice in pulmonary and critical care at South Lake Hospital in Clermont. He resides in East Orlando and lives with his partner Ricardo and their beautiful, sweet, and loving Miniature Schnauzers Max and Millie.