Dr. Sooksai Kaewbua is from Thailand, where she received a B.S. in Economics and worked in business. After coming to the U.S., she changed careers and earned a B.S. in Nursing from Murray State University. She earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), Psychiatric/Mental-Health track, from the University of Kentucky where she received the award for outstanding graduate student. Her doctoral research project was titled Evaluation of the “Healthy-Heart, Healthy-Brain (H3B) Program”, an educational program she created for inpatient mental-health patients. Her project received the 2015 Paula Fritz Award for Cardiovascular Research and Education from UK’s Saha Cardiovascular Research Center. She also co-published a research paper focused on tobacco addiction treatment.

Since 2011, Sooksai has worked as a psychiatric nurse / psychiatric nurse practitioner in both inpatient and outpatient settings, including working with veterans and patients of all ages. Currently, she works as a psychiatric nurse practitioner at a community health center in Eastern Kentucky and at her solo practice in Frankfort.

Sooksai served for two years as President of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA), KY Chapter. During her second year, she received a national award for most innovative chapter of the year.

Sooksai entered academia to help students learn from her experience and bridge the gap between theory and practice in order to deeply understand mental-health nursing.