Larry Purnell, AND, BSN, MS, MSN, Ph.D., FAAN

Emeritus Professor - School of Nursing College of Health Sciences, University of Delaware

Ph.D. Program, University of Panama

Emeritus Professor – Excelsior University, Albany, New York

Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award for unwavering excellent

Doctor of Humane Letters, Excelsior University, Albany, NY

Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award for unwavering excellence

E-mail: lpurnell@udel.edu

A fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, Purnell is a Transcultural Nursing Scholar and a member of TCNS since the late 1980s, a Luther Christman Fellow, and is featured on the Rosa Parks Wall of Fame for Teaching Tolerance.

Languages spoken, read, write:  

English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese

Expertise Areas:

Foreign Teaching: I have taught baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral courses in Panama, Italy, Turkey., and the University of the Madives.

Creator of the Purnell Model for Cultural Competence  thathas been translated into Arabic, Czechoslovakian, Flemish, French, German, Korean, German, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.

Publications, Presentations, and Consultations: His textbook, Transcultural Health Care: A Culturally Competent Approach won the Brandon Hill and American Journal of Nursing Book Awards. He has more than 100 refereed journal publications, 100 book chapters, and 16 textbooks, two of which are in Spanish and one in Portuguese. He has made presentations throughout the United States as well as in Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Great Britain, Scotland, Norway, Italy, Korea, Panama, Russia, Spain, Denmark, and Turkey. He is the US representative to the European Union’s Commission on Intercultural Communication that resulted from the Salamanca, Sorbonne, Bologna, and WHO Declarations. An additional publication is a Handbook for Culturally Competent Pet Care published by Banfield Animal Hospital.

Fulbright Fellowship. An invited Fulbright Fellowship took me to Sweden, Great Britain, and Scotland.

Visiting Professor. I have been a visiting professor at the following:  Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey; Adjunct Professor Florida International University; Visiting Professor Universitá di Modena Reggio Emelia Medical School, Modena, Italy where presentations were in 5 languages; Adjunct Professor, University South Alabama; New York University; Donato Institute Post-doctoral programs; University Pavia, Milan Italy; Maldives National University, Republic of the Maldives; Visiting Professor, Milan International Language Institute, Milan, Italy, University of Panama; Adjunct Professor, Barry University; Adjunct Faculty, Kean University.

Grants: I have been the recipient of 21 grants for research: The largest was a team grant for $1,954,264

Present/Future Directions

Continue attending conferences, consulting, and giving presentations globally. I am currently working on the 17th book that is an update of the fifth edition of Textbook for Transcultural Health Care: A Population Approach published by Springer in Switzerland.


Updated 02/2023