Christine Stewart, MSN, RN, CNL, CCTC, is a transplant nurse leader recognized for advancing access to transplantation and leading impactful system-level change. She currently serves as the Kidney Transplant Nurse Manager at the Atrium Health Adult Kidney Transplant Program, where she oversees outpatient transplant operations and leads multidisciplinary teams across the pre- and post-transplant continuum.
Christine’s career spans bedside nursing, quality leadership, clinical operations, and program management, with a consistent focus on education, mentorship, and improving transplant outcomes. She began as a bedside nurse caring for kidney and liver transplant patients—earning recognition including the DAISY Award—before becoming a Clinical Nurse Leader and later a Transplant Nurse Coordinator, where she authored and presented a quality improvement initiative that reduced referral-to-evaluation time by nearly 50 percent. Her accomplishments include implementing frailty screening for kidney transplant candidates, helping establish a delayed graft function clinic, and collaborating on policies expanding access to HIV-positive donor organs. She recently partnered with The Alliance on a Coffee & Collaboration series for transplant administrators and is pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice in Executive Health Leadership.
She was nominated for The Alliance 40 Under 40 by Heather Genna, Associate Vice President of Transplant Services at Atrium Health. “Her leadership consistently translates data into action, improving both patient outcomes and access to life-saving transplantation,” Genna wrote, citing Christine’s clinical improvements and her passionate advocacy for expanding equitable access to care.