Every year, as part of the organization's mission to foster service and leadership in forensic nursing, the Academy of Forensic Nursing recognizes exemplary members for their contributions to forensic nursing and the organization with the Distinguished Fellow (DF-AFN) and Distinguished Member (DM-AFN) awards. For 2025, one new Distinguished Member and four Distinguished Fellows received this honor.

The Distinguished Member award recognizes members in good standing who participate in AFN committees or educational opportunities, and who help educate others about forensic nursing by presenting or publishing about forensic nursing topics in conferences, posters, podcasts, webinars, or journals. The 2025 recipient of this honorary title is Tamara Jackson.

The Distinguished Fellow award – the highest recognition awarded to active AFN members – recognizes those who have contributed significantly to the field of forensic nursing for a minimum of ten years through scholarship, education, and service. The newest recipients of this title are Victor Petreca, Andrea Sebastian, Anne Troy, and Jessica Volz.

Click here to learn more about AFN Distinguished Memberships.

AFN Distinguished Member

Tamara Jackson, MSN, RN, SANE-A, SANE-P

Tamara Jackson is an innovative and driven nurse with over 20 years of experience in healthcare, 15 years in the ER. She has an MSN and BSN and is a SANE-A and SANE-P. Jackson is the System SANE Program Manager for Sinai Chicago Health System where she initiated a program to allow other organizations to transfer survivors of sexual assault to Sinai Chicago for evidence-based quality care. She has helped the organization build and complete policy and procedures, implement, educate, and advocate. She has managed multiple sites within other organizations with significant change integration. She has been involved in the development of documentation tools, advanced practice techniques, and promoting the incorporation of forensic photography for sexual assault, sexual abuse, child abuse, and intimate partner violence. Jackson is leading the system and community to improve the response to human trafficking, intimate partner violence, elderly abuse, child abuse, and sexual assault and abuse.

AFN Distinguished Fellow

Victor Petreca, PhD, DNP, RN, PMHNP-BC

Victor Petreca directs the Center for Police Training in Crisis Intervention, developing evidence-based programs for law enforcement. The Center, a Massachusetts Department of Mental Health initiative, optimizes behavioral crisis responses and supports jail diversion programs statewide. He's an Assistant Professor at Boston College's Connell School of Nursing and a board-certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Funded by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, his research focuses on forensic psychiatry, jail diversion, and crisis intervention strategies. Petreca has extensive clinical experience in forensic psychiatry/mental health, correctional healthcare, and psychopharmacology.

Andrea Sebastian, DNP, APRN, CPNP-AC/PC, AFN-C, SANE-P, DM-AFN

Andrea Sebastian obtained her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree from the University of Kentucky in 2014 with a focus of primary care pediatrics. Upon graduation, she began working with the child abuse team at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, where her primary duties included medical evaluations of children with concerns for physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. She practiced as an adjunct faculty member with the UTHSC College of Nursing from 2014–2016 and joined the college’s clinical faculty as an assistant professor in 2017. In 2022, she completed her Post Master’s Certification in Acute Care Pediatrics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Sebastian is a certified sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) for pediatric patients, and a certified advanced forensic nurse (AFN-C).  She also serves as the principal investigator for the $1.5 million HRSA Advanced Nursing Education Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Program grant awarded to the UTHSC College of Nursing.

Anne Troy, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC

Anne Troy has been a nurse since graduating from Rutgers in 1978. She is presently an Associate Professor of Nursing at the University of Holy Cross and Forensic NP at Children's Hospital in New Orleans where she meets the bravest children across the South for medical evaluations for abuse and neglect. She has been an expert witness over 150 times in criminal court. Her research interest is caring for jurors who admit childhood abuse as a reason for dismissal from serving at trials. For fun she keeps up with six grandkids who do not let her slow down and serves on the board of directors for AFN.

Jessica Volz, DNP, CRNP, FNE A/P, FNP-BC, SANE-A, SANE-P, NE-BC, DM-AFN

Jessica Volz serves as the Clinical Director of Forensics at Shady Grove Medical Center in Rockville, Maryland. She has earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice, Bachelor of Science degrees in both nursing and behavioral science, and is a Nightingale Award winner. She is a nurse practitioner with a background in critical care, emergency, and forensic nursing working with patients across the lifespan for more than ten years. Volz currently serves on the Montgomery County Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team, Child Fatality Review Team, is co-chair of the Montgomery County Sexual Assault Response Team, Victim Services Sub-Committee for the Montgomery County Human Trafficking Committee, the Medical Sub-Committee for the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force, and is a NIOSH fellow in the PhD program at University of Alabama at Birmingham. Under her leadership, she and members of the Forensic Medical Unit have lectured internationally, received a proclamation from the Montgomery County Council for its work with survivors of human trafficking and survivors of sexual assault, the Community Vital Link Public Safety Award from the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, and recognition from the Maryland Attorney General.