Victimology: Theories And Applications

Ann Wolbert Burgess, RN, DNSc, FAAN, is professor of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing at Boston College’s Connell School of Nursing. She received her bachelors and doctoral degrees from Boston University and her masters degree from the University of Maryland. She teaches five forensic courses: Victimology, Forensic Mental Health, Forensic Science, Forensic Science Lab, and Wounded Warriors in Transition. She, with Lynda Lytle Holmstrom (Boston College), cofounded one of the first hospital-based crisis intervention programs for rape victims at Boston City Hospital. She is licensed as an advanced practice nurse in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, where she also maintains prescriptive authority. Dr. Burgess has testified as an expert witness in 31 states and has received grants and published articles on the topics of rape trauma, child sexual abuse, child pornography, serial offenders, crime classification, posttraumatic stress, elder abuse, and wounded warriors.'Dr. Burgess served as chair of the first Advisory Council to the National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape of the National Institute of Mental Health, was a member of the 1984 U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence, served on the planning committee for the 1985 Surgeon General’s Symposium on Violence, and served on the National Institute of Health National Advisory Council for the Center for Nursing Research from 1986 to 1988. She was a member of the 1990 Adolescent Health Advisory Panel to the Congress of the United States Office of Technology Assessment and Chair of the National Institutes of Health AIDS and Related Research Study Section (ARRR 6) from 1992 to 1994. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine in October 1994 and chaired the 1996 National Research Council’s Task Force on Violence Against Women. She was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau. Her current research is on patterns of murder-suicide and combat-PTSD.