Tim Cunningham is an international keynote speaker and award-winning author. As former Co-Chief Well-Being Officer at Emory Healthcare, he established an office of well-being focusing on systematic change and support of the well-being of more than 35,000 faculty and staff. He holds an appointment as an adjunct associate professor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory. Tim collaborates with interprofessional teams to support structural and systemic well-being change for healthcare professionals.

Cunningham’s first passion was for the performing arts. He worked as an actor for nearly a decade in various regional theatres. For 22 years, Tim has served as a performing artist, board member, and most recently, as executive director of Clowns Without Borders, Inc. Clowns Without Borders sends professional artists into war zones, refugee camps and other zones of crisis to reduce suffering through laughter and playfulness. It was working as a clown in a pediatric ward in pre-earthquake Haiti that inspired Tim to study nursing. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Nursing in 2009 and then worked as an emergency/trauma nurse at the UVA Health, Children’s National Medical Center and New York Presbyterian, Cornell. Tim completed his Doctorate of Public Health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in 2016.

He has co-authored two books on nurse self-care and he has written a children’s book about resilience.