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Dr. Peter Buerhaus is the Valere Potter Distinguished Professor of Nursing and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies, the Institute for Medicine and Public Health, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Prior to becoming the Center director in January 2007, Dr. Buerhaus served as the senior associate dean for research at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing from 2000 to 2006. Before coming to Vanderbilt University, Dr. Buerhaus was assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health (1992-2000) where he developed the Harvard Nursing Research Institute and its post-doctoral program in nursing health services research. During the 1980s, he served as assistant to the chief executive officer of the University of Michigan Medical Center's seven teaching hospitals (1983-1986) and assistant to the vice provost for Medical Affairs, the chief executive of the medical center (1987-1990). 

Dr. Buerhaus maintains an active research program involving studies on the economics of the nursing workforce, health workforce forecasting, developing measures of quality of care, and determining public and provider opinions on issues involving the delivery of health care.  Professor Buerhaus has published nearly 80 peer-reviewed articles and recently co-authored the most widely accessed article published in 2006 in the health policy journal, Health Affairs.  Dr. Buerhaus, along with Douglas Staiger and David Auerbach, is the author of the 2008 bookThe Future of the Nursing Workforce in the United States: Data, Trends, and Implications. He has editorial responsibilities with many peer reviewed health services research and nursing journals, and has advised policy makers and legislators on a wide variety of nursing health policy issues. Dr. Buerhaus was elected into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2003, and has been a member of the American Academy of Nursing since 1994. He is currently a member of the Joint Commission's Nursing Advisory Committee, and recently served on the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Nursing Research (2001-2006), National Quality Forum Steering Committee on Nursing Quality Performance Measures (2004-2005), and as a board of director of Sigma Theta Tau International (2001-2005). 

Dr. Buerhaus earned his baccalaureate degree in nursing from Mankato State University (1976), a master's degree in nursing health services administration from the University of Michigan (1981), a doctoral degree from Wayne State University (1990), and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation faculty fellow in healthcare finance at the Johns Hopkins University (1991-1992).