Portfolio

Here are some of the ways I have partnered with nurses, social workers, patient advocates, and other helping professionals to realize social change.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - RWJF helped create the contemporary nursing profession through its scholarships for nursing science and its funding of national reports on the future of nursing. In conjunction with the development of the National Academy of Medicine report on nursing and health equity, I helped RWJF amplify its efforts to fight racism in the profession. I was part of the team that launched SHIFT Nursing, a platform that includes podcasts and films that highlight the struggle for racial equity in the profession. I also helped develop and promote a groundbreaking survey on racism in nursing and several other related initiatives.

American Association of Critical-Care Nurses - Besides being the largest specialty nurse society, AACN is known for articulating the Healthy Work Environment (HWE) standards and creating an array of programs to help healthcare settings like up to them. All my work with AACN has involved building up the standards and their impact. In 2022-2023, I served as an external adviser to the National Nurse Staffing Task Force, through which AACN composed staffing standards in partnership with the American Nurses Association and other leading groups. I also led strategy sessions to facilitate breakthroughs in the group’s own specialty staffing standards and continue to advance HWE through a variety of associated projects.

University of Southern California - With my colleagues at GreenHouse: The Center of Social Innovation, I served as an innovator-in-residence at USC’s social work school for four years, helping faculty launch an array of new programs and initiatives. Chief among these was an advanced practice doctoral program that combined training in macro social work with design thinking and social innovation. I eventually joined the program as an instructor, helping dozens of students build capstone projects that addressed core social challenges like homelessness, decarceration, child abuse, and economic development.

Harvard Medical School / Family Van - Today, it is clear that mobile health solutions (think vans, not phones) can help populations who can be reached no other way. Yet in the 2010s leaders of Harvard’s Family Van program were having trouble garnering sufficient attention for their work, despite being associated with one of the world’s pre-eminent medical schools. An Insight Lab held with Harvard kicked off a larger inquiry into how outreach programs like Family Van can instruct a larger research enterprise. These ideas were further explored in a series of interviews with cutting-edge researchers and frontline advocates.

I’ve also helped the helpers at AARP, The University of Kansas, Oregon Center for Nursing, The Ovarian Cancer Project, Yes We Cancer, and many others.