May 31, 2024

Tamara “AB” Averett-Brauer, MN, RN, Col., USAF (Ret.), is the incoming President for the Aerospace Nursing and Allied Health Professionals Society (ANAHPS).

She served 29 years in the U.S. Air Force as Pacific Air Forces Command Nurse, Squadron Commander, Chief Nurse, Flight Nurse, and Tanker Airlift Control Center Barrel Master. She is a Chief Flight Nurse with over 1200 flight hours. Her operational and deployed experiences include two tours in Afghanistan supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, first as Chief Nurse, Craig Joint Theater Hospital/JTF-MED, and then as 451st Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron Commander. Additionally, she was the 775th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron Director of Operations for the U.S. redistribution of patients from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her operational Flight Nurse tours included 2nd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron (AES) and 86 AES Ramstein AB, Germany, where she was a Flight Nurse Instructor and Flight Nurse Examiner, and when she returned as the 86 AE Squadron Commander. She served as the Military Consultant to the Air Force Surgeon General for Aeromedical Evacuation and Flight Nursing from 2010–2015.
   Ms. Averett-Brauer retired from active duty and set out on an RV adventure for 9 months with her spouse. The call came to serve again as an Air Force civilian and led them to Dayton, OH, and her current position as a Senior Health Scientist/Nurse Researcher at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, for the Defense Health Program and Air Force Medical Service research efforts addressing identified research gaps in en route care/aeromedical evacuation and expeditionary medicine. She guides research teams conducting active projects.
   Ms. Averett-Brauer is a Life Member of the Society of Federal Health Care Professionals and a member of the American Nurses Association, the Nebraska Nurses Association, and the Air and Surface Transport Nurses Association. Within AsMA, she has served on the Scientific Program Committee. Her honors and awards include the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, the Meritorious Service Medal with six oak leaf clusters, the Barbara C. Brannon Nursing Leadership Award from the Pacific Air Forces, the Aeromedical Evacuation Excellence in Management Award from Mobility Air Forces, Field Grade Nurse of the Year from the 81st Medical Group at Keesler AFB, MS, and the Mary T. Klinker Award from the Aerospace Medical Association. She has presented at AsMA’s Annual Scientific Meeting as well as at meetings of the Asia Pacific Military Nurse Exchange, the Society of Federal Health Professionals, and the Military Health System Research Symposium.