Katie Walsh Flanagan, EdD, LAT,ATC, is a professor in the department of health education and promotion at East Carolina University (ECU), where she has worked for over two and a half decades, and is a certified athletic trainer by the Board of Certification (BOC). She was hired in 1995 as director of the sports medicine and athletic training program at East Carolina University; served as a lecturer and assistant athletic trainer at California State University, Fresno; and served as the head athletic trainer for the Chicago Power, a men's professional soccer team. She has also assisted as an athletic trainer for various sports in international competitions, including the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and the 1987 Pan American Games. Flanagan is a practicing athletic trainer and has volunteered in ECU Athletics for the past 28 years. In 2012, Flanagan was elected to the North Carolina Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame. The organization named her the College/University Athletic Trainer of the Year in 2000 and 2006. In 2023 she was elected to the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame. She received the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award in 2010 and NATA's Service Award in 2006. In 2017, she was named a NATA board member as the director of District Three, where she served until 2022. Flanagan is an author of three medical textbooks and a prolific speaker on athletic emergencies and on weather and safety policies.
Micki Cuppett, EdD, LAT, ATC, FNAP, has more than 30 years of experience as an athletic trainer, medical educator, and administrator. She has directed athletic training programs at two universities, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition to educating athletic training students, Micki also taught medical, nursing, physical therapy, and pharmacology students in the University of South Florida College of Medicine and helped initiate the interprofessional education program. She is now a consultant in the areas of strategic planning, interprofessional education, leadership, accreditation, AT education, medical simulation, and innovation.
Prior to starting her own consulting business, Cuppett was the executive director for the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE). During her tenure in the position, she oversaw the successful recognition of CAATE by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, converted all accreditation documentation and processes to an electronic platform, and implemented an entirely virtual office. She is a fellow of the National Academies of Practice and the USF Health Leadership Institute. Cuppett has received numerous professional awards and hall of fame inductions throughout her professional career.
