2025

Jackie Palmore is the clinical coordinator for the UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center. A registered nurse for 38 years, she has devoted the majority of her career to palliative, supportive, and hospice/home care. She played a pivotal role in the development of UAB’s 12-bed inpatient Palliative and Comfort Care Unit in 2004 and has since helped establish the inpatient consult service and the broader palliative care interdisciplinary team. In addition, as a faculty member of the Palliative Care Leadership Center at the UAB Center to Advance Palliative Care,

Melinda “Mel” Mayorga, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Ambulatory Oncology. Services, University of Southern California, Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Board-certified as an adult gerontology clinical nurse specialist and an oncology nurse, Mel chairs the Ambulatory Fall Prevention Council for Norris and Keck ambulatory clinics and co-chairs the Keck Nursing Professionalism program. In 2022, she was named the USC Nurse Humanitarian of the Year. Mel is a member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Nurse Honor Guard, where she honors deceased nurses. In 2024, she was a recipient of the Simms/Mann Family Foundation’s Off the Chart award to recognize and reward greatness in

Erin Collins, Cofounder and Director of Programs, The Peaceful Presence Project in Bend, Oregon. Collins is a certified hospice and palliative care nurse with 17 years of experience in hospice and adult and pediatric oncology. Trained as an end-of-life doula, she is a member of the board of directors for the Oregon Hospice and Palliative Care Association, an appointed member to the Oregon Health Authority’s Palliative Care and Quality of Life Advisory Council, and the former vice-chair of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s End-of-Life Doula Advisory Council. She cofounded The Peaceful Presence Project after seeing that many patients