Job Title: Assistant Clinical Professor
Organization: University of Arizona
Education: Doctor of Nursing Practice-Executive, PhD candidate
Professional Affiliations: Arizona Nurses Association, American Association of Nurse Practitioners, National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau, American Academy of Nursing
"As a Native American nurse, my lived experience has strengthened an innate responsibility to improve health disparities for underserved minority populations. My mother raised me to center myself around the Navajo wellness philosophy of Hózhó, which promotes the interconnectedness of goodness, beauty, and harmony between a person’s actions and the surrounding world. Also being of Hawaiian descent, my family embraced the concept of Ha, meaning the breath of life. These cultural philosophies guided my pathway into nursing, a profession with a congruent ethos to optimize the health and well-being of others.
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My clinical practice background spans 20 years within the realm of nursing and community health. For over 9 years, my professional practice role has been as a nurse practitioner in emergency healthcare for rural and tribal communities in Arizona. In addition to clinical practice, I am an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Arizona College of Nursing and a PhD candidate in the Nursing and Health Innovation program at Arizona State University where the overarching interest of research is health equity for underrepresented minority groups, specifically Native American communities. The integration of my life experience into my educational and professional journey offers a unique lens to the academic and clinical teams I work with. My strong cultural connection provides an intuitive nature that strives to understand and help underserved populations. In the culmination of the experiences across the spectrum of nursing, these efforts have had a direct impact on nursing education, research, and policy improving health outcomes of historically marginalized communities."
