Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Steering Committee

To better meet America’s health needs and contribute to a Culture of Health, the nursing workforce needs to reflect the country’s multitude of ethnicities, races, cultures, and communities. Such diversity will ultimately increase health equity and help transform the way people get their health care.

Mission

The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee works to identify advocates and leaders to implement policies, programs, best and promising practices to ensure a diverse cadre of nurses; and to promote health equity and address systemic and institutional racism and other inequities for historically marginalized populations.

Committee Members

Biographies

Sadie Anderson MSN, RN

Sadie Anderson is the president of National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association (NANAINA) and is a board member of the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Association. She is an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin. She received both her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and Master of Science in Nursing-Family Nurse Practitioner (MSN-FNP) from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Sadie began her nursing career at a clinic focusing on women’s health and infertility. She began her hospital career at the Alaska Native Medical Center where she worked as a floor nurse, charge nurse, manager and her current position, Director of Nursing over all of the medsurg departments. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has served as the nursing director of the COVID testing site and opened an Alternate Care Site attached to the hospital.

Martha Dawson, DNP, RN, FACHE

Martha Dawson is the current president of the National Black Nurses Association Inc. She leads the Association in its mission is to represent and provide a forum for collective action by African American nurses to advocate for and implement strategies to ensure access to the highest quality of healthcare for persons of color.* She also serves as an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing and teaches in the division of Nursing and Health System Leadership, Nursing and Health System Administration (NHSA) track and Executive DNP track. Previously, Martha served as the MSN Specialty Coordinator for NHSA and the Director of the Nursing and Health Systems Leadership Division. She earned her doctor of nursing practice from Case Western Reserve University, a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Mary Joy Garcia-Dia, DNP, RN, FAAN

Mary Joy Garcia-Dia is the program director, Nursing Informatics, Information Technology Department at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She represents the nursing informatics team across the healthcare system enterprise in spearheading the planning, designing, developing, training, implementing, communicating, maintaining, and evaluating existing or new functionality and technology related to the digital health system of the organization. Mary Jo is also president of the Philippine Nurses Association of America and a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. She earned a doctorate in nursing practice degree from Case Western University, a master’s degree in nursing informatics from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of St. La Salle in the Philippines.

Adrianna Nava, PhD, MPA, RN

Adrianna Nava is a Research Scientist, Performance Measurement, at the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). She is also president of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN). Adrianna focuses on building the leadership capacity of nurses, with a focus on Latino nurses, who continue to be underrepresented in health care leadership positions across the U.S. Through NAHN, she focuses on building the organizational structure to promote the advancement of Hispanic nurses to local, state, and national positions of leadership. In 2020, she received the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Award for Excellence in Nursing. She earned a PhD in nursing and health policy from the University of Massachusetts Boston, a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University, a master of science in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor of science in nursing from Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing.

Marianne Snyder, PhD, MSN, RN

Marianne Snyder is an assistant clinical professor and director of undergraduate nursing programs at the University of Connecticut’s School of Nursing. Snyder is also the chair of the Nursing Section of GLMA, a national organization committed to ensuring health equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and all sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, and equality for LGBTQ/SGM health professionals in their work and learning environments. She is passionate about educating students about culturally appropriate, affirming, individualized, patient-centered care and understanding their role in shaping health policy. Her research has focused on the health care experiences of LGBTQ populations and the experiences of health care providers who care for individuals in these populations. As a registered nurse and nursing professor, Marianne has been educating patients and nursing students collectively for nearly 38 years in acute care, community, public health, and academic settings. Marianne has researched the health care experiences of lesbian women and the beliefs, behaviors, and experiences of advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) with lesbian and gay patients. She received her PhD in nursing from the University of Connecticut, her master’s degree in nursing from West Virginia University, and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida.

Blake K. Smith, MSN, RN

Blake K. Smith serves as a clinical documentation senior analyst at Nebraska Medicine in Omaha, Neb., where he leads all projects on patient education/health literacy, plan of care, business continuity access, and promoting interoperability for the health system. Blake advocates for clinicians to be successful in delivering efficient and high-quality information to improve health outcomes in the Omaha community. Smith is a leader in men’s health and male inclusion issues in the nursing profession and serves as the president for the American Association for Men in Nursing. He is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Careers in Nursing Scholar and served as the first chair of the New Careers in Nursing Scholars Network as a founding member. He also serves as a member of the Nebraska Action Coalition Diversity Task Force and Leadership Committee. Blake earned a degree in exercise science research from Nebraska Wesleyan University, a bachelor’s in nursing from Nebraska Methodist College, and his master’s in nursing health systems management and administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Debra Toney, PhD, RN, FAAN

Debra Toney is the director of quality management at Nevada’s largest federally qualified health center, Nevada Health Centers, Inc. (NVHC), comprising 18 health centers in urban, rural, and frontier Nevada. As the director, she is responsible for ensuring high quality and cost-effective health care throughout NVHC’s integrated practice of medical, dental, and behavioral health services. Toney works diligently on behalf of the nursing and health professions: She is the president of the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations and serves as treasurer of the Nurses on Boards Coalition. She founded the Southern Nevada Black Nurses Association, now celebrating its 20th year. Her history of public service includes appointment by the state governor to the state’s Office of Minority Health advisory committee, where she provided leadership and direction as its first chair. She is a graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows program. Debra is active with the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action and is the chair of the Nevada Action Coalition and its Diversity Task Force.

Jing Wang, PhD, RN, FAAN

Jing Wang is the dean and professor of the Florida State University College of Nursing, and adjunct professor in Biomedical Informatics and Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Her research uses mobile and connected health technologies to optimize multiple-behavior lifestyle interventions and improve patient-centered outcomes among the chronically ill and aging populations with multiple chronic conditions, especially among the rural, underserved, and minority populations. In addition to her research focus on health disparity populations, she’s also devoted to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in academic and clinical nursing settings as President of the Asian American/Pacific Islander Nurses Association, and Board of Directors at National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurses Association. She’s an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, 2013 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar, 2015 TEDMED Scholar, 2016 Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Macy Faculty Scholar, and Harvard Macy Scholar where she continues to teach in the “Leading Innovations in Health Care & Education” program in the Harvard Macy Institute. Jing received MSN and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, MPH from its Graduate School of Public Health, and Graduate Certificate in Clinical and Translational Science from its School of Medicine.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Steering Committee

Mission

Committee Members

Blake K. Smith, MSN, RN

Jing Wang, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN

Marianne Snyder, PhD, MSN, RN

Sadie Anderson MSN, RN

Adrianna Nava, PhD, MPA, RN

Martha Dawson, DNP, RN, FACHE

Debra Toney, PhD, RN, FAAN

Mary Joy Garcia-Dia, DNP, RN, FAAN

Biographies