Ryan Schalles is a nurse, educator, veteran, researcher, and patient safety leader whose career has been shaped by a lifelong commitment to service. He began his military career in the United States Marine Corps and later served in the Army Nurse Corps Reserve. These experiences profoundly influenced his understanding of service, identity, and the challenges veterans face when navigating civilian institutions and healthcare systems.

Ryan is an Assistant Professor and Founding Faculty member at the University of North Texas Health Science Center College of Nursing. He also serves as Clinical Administrator for the Texas Center for Patient Safety, where he works on veteran-specific initiatives focused on improving healthcare for those who have served.

His scholarly work focuses on the military-to-civilian transition and veteran healthcare, particularly how institutions recognize, understand, and respond to veteran identity. His research examines veteran transition through the lens of institutional reculturation and argues that many failures in civilian veteran care are not simply failures of clinical knowledge or skill, but failures of institutional recognition and receptivity. His work has led to the development of the Theory of Veteran Identity Integration and the emerging Field Receptivity framework.

Currently completing his PhD in Nursing at the University of Texas at Tyler, Ryan brings together his experiences as a Marine, Army nurse, educator, researcher, and patient safety leader. Across each chapter of his career, his work has remained grounded in a simple commitment: to serve those who have served and to help healthcare institutions become better prepared to serve them.