Dr. Laurie Kennedy-Malone has been a certified gerontological nurse practitioner since 1982 and a professor of nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro since 1990. She is a fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the Gerontological Society of America. She was the 2007 recipient of the Geriatric Nursing Faculty Champion Award by the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing and the National Conference of Gerontological Nurse Practitioners' (NCGNP) Excellence in Education Award in 2006. In November 2018, she was awarded a Certificate of Recognition for Excellence as a Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing by the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence.

Dr. Kennedy-Malone coauthored Integrating Gerontological Content into Advanced Practice Nursing Education (2010) and Advanced Practice Nursing in the Care of Older Adults (2014 and 2019); both books were recipients of an AJN Book of the Year Award. She has authored over 35 peer-reviewed publications. She served as president of National Conference of Geriatric Nurse Practitioners from 1997-1998. In 2020, Laurie was the recipient of the Excellence in Leadership award from the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association (GAPNA), and in 2021 was the recipient of the Excellence in Creativity & Innovation, Edith Moore Copeland Founders Award from Sigma Theta Tau International.