While many professionals lose steam in the second half of their careers, Katherine Fry’s passion and perseverance are only accelerating. Her career vision is bold: to revolutionize the HR profession by replacing archaic leadership and management practices with approaches rooted in neuroscience. Katherine has been named the 2024 and 2025 Top Burnout Coach in the United States by Evergreen Awards and Best Future of Work Keynote Speaker by Biz Weekly. She is the CEO and founder of Marble Peak Consulting and creator of Refresh HR, a first-of-itskind app, providing HR professionals and people leaders with 24/7, on-demand access to 100+ accredited SHRM and HRCI recertification workshops. As president of Elevate HR and founder of HR Empower Hour, Katherine is the driving force being a growing, modern-day movement that helps HR professionals reclaim their energy, amplify their influence, and transform organizational culture from the inside out. 

Judith Karshmer is dean and professor of Arizona State University’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation. She came to ASU in 2018 from the School of Nursing and Health Professions at the University of San Francisco (USF), where she is Dean Emerita.

At ASU, Karshmer’s focus is on expanding the global footprint of the college through academic practice partnerships that promote the college’s research agenda while embedding students and faculty in the community in meaningful ways, an approach she pioneered at USF. Karshmer was also instrumental in developing the first doctorate of nursing program in California and establishing an “evidence-based” education model that challenges students and faculty to think creatively to produce better health solutions and outcomes. 

Appointed to the San Francisco Health Commission from 2013-2018, Karshmer has extensive experience linking the community and academia and creating relationships within academia. She has overseen the formation of partnerships with University of California-Berkeley, the University of the Pacific schools of pharmacy and dentistry, and Kaiser Permanente Nurse Scholars Academy, as well as an integrated academic-practice model that allows faculty to provide services while working with students at community clinics. Karshmer is also a board member of the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and member of the AACN Competency-Based Education for Doctoral Prepared APRNs National Task Force. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) and was named “Most Influential Women in Business in the Bay Area ‘Forever Influential Honor Roll’ in 2016. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services.

Karshmer graduated with her bachelor’s degree in 1970 and pursued her master’s degree in advanced psychiatric nursing at Rutgers University. She studied under Hildegard Peplau, an outspoken proponent