Robert G. Hess, Jr., RN, MSN, PhD, was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing on Nov. 8.

Hess is executive vice president for continuing education programming for Gannett Education, which includes Nursing Spectrum’s Division of Continuing Education.

Hess is an award-winning author who has written more than 100 articles for numerous journals and books and has coached more than 500 healthcare professionals to publish their first articles.

Hess also helped develop nationally and internationally used instruments that measure governance by professionals in healthcare organizations. The instruments are used to assess, implement, and evaluate shared governance programs and to pursue Magnet status. In 2005, he created the Forum for Shared Governance and its Web site to meet the needs of staff nurses, administrators, and researchers who implement and evaluate shared governance models.

Hess has served on numerous editorial and advisory boards and has lectured and written for Sigma Theta Tau International, nursing’s honor society. He is a past recipient of several awards from Seton Hall University, the New Jersey State Nurses Association, and the prestigious N.J. Governor’s Merit for Excellence Award as educator of the year.