Adelita G. Cantu
Adeita G. Cantu, PhD, RN is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio School of Nursing. Dr. Cantu has extensive experience as a public health nurse working in the community through collaboration to ensure equitable health, particularly in minority, low income communities. Dr. Cantu’s environmental justice work involves teaching the next generation of health care professionals about climate change as a public health issue, as well as teaching low income youth about climate change and working with local policy makers to understand climate change and its inequitable burden to vulnerable, low income communities.
Anabell Castro Thompson
Anabell Castro Thompson, MSN, APRN, ANP-C, FAAN, FAANP is a Nurse Practitioner and Senior Vice President of Health Equity at Equality Health.
A Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Anabell’s leadership exemplifies sustained commitment towards improving healthcare for vulnerable and underserved communities, especially Latino Communities. Determined to bridge health care disparities, she is responsible for building and managing innovative programs and strategic initiatives around Cultural Care Models and the Social Determinants of Health.
Anabell is passionate about principles of environmental justice and climate equity and had the enormous pleasure to participate with Jane Fonda’s Fire Drills Friday’s – Climate and Health Session in December 2019.
Anabell is Immediate Past President of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) and serves on multiple national boards, including ANHE and ecoAmerica Health Leadership Circle. She has been honored as a distinguished alumni by both her alma maters—the University of Arizona and Arizona State University.
Daniel Smith
Daniel J. Smith, PhD, RN, CNE is a doctorally prepared nurse and the Weingarten Endowed Assistant Professors at Villanova University’s M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing. During my PhD Studies, I was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholar, Cohort 5. My overarching research interest lies at the intersection of understanding the effects of climate change on the health outcomes of disenfranchised populations and how we can build climate resilience and adaptation skills in communities & health systems. In addition to my scholarship, I have worked clinical with multiple refugee and immigrant populations in the primary care setting. I am excited to be the co-chair of ANHE’s climate change committee and hope to bring my skills to advance the mission of the committee and the organization.
Anne Hulick
Anne, RN, MS, JD is the Connecticut Director of Clean Water Action/Clean Water Fund and focuses on passing health protective policies aimed at mitigating climate change by promoting energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy, protecting our waters and reducing exposure to toxic chemicals. Anne started her career as a critical care nurse and then as nursing director. She holds a BSN from the University of Hartford and a MS in administration from UCONN. Recognizing that the healthcare system focused on treatment rather than prevention and the links between human impact on the environment and health, Anne pursued a juris doctorate from Western New England College School of Law in order to combine nursing, health policy and the law. She was admitted to the CT Bar in October 2007. Prior to joining Clean Water Action, she served as the environmental health coordinator for the CT Nurses’ Association and was an environmental analyst at CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Azita Amiri
Dr. Azita Amiri, PhD, RN is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, College of Nursing, and a Bloomberg Fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Amiri is a nurse scientist with an interest in Public Health and Environmental Justice. She reaches out to environmental justice communities and educates them about potential environmental exposures and ways to mitigate the exposure. Furthermore, she measures indoor air quality in residential and occupational settings and studies the common indoor air exposures, their concentrations and sources, and their impact on pregnancy outcomes, child health, and well-being of the elderly.
Barbara Sattler
Dr. Sattler is a Professor at the University of San Francisco (USF) and an international leader in environmental health and nursing. She is a founding and active member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments.
At USF, she teaches environmental health in the Doctor of Nursing Practice and Master of Public Health Programs. Prior to her position at USF, Dr. Sattler was at the University of Maryland for 25 years where she directed the Environmental Health Education Center in the School of Nursing. Over the years, Dr. Sattler has lead projects on lead poisoning prevention, greening hospitals, sustainable agriculture, climate change, children’s environmental health, and faculty development programs in environmental health.
She has been an advisor to the US EPA’s Office of Child Health Protection and the National Library of Medicine for informational needs of health professionals on environmental health. Dr. Sattler has been the PI on a host of grants from NIEHS, HUD, and the EPA. She helped to found Health Care Without Harm, a national organization focused on greening the health care sector. She is the author of Environmental Health and Nursing, and many peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Sattler is a Registered Nurse with an MPH and DrPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.
Elizabeth Schenk
Elizabeth Schenk, PhD, RN, FAAN is the Executive Director of Environmental Stewardship for Providence, a health system with over 50 hospitals and 1000 clinics. She is instrumental in helping advance the organization toward its goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030, through the conservation of resources, education, and research.
Beth is assistant research professor at Washington State University College of Nursing. She led the development of CHANT: Climate and Health Tool, measuring health professionals’ awareness and engagement with climate change and health. CHANT has been translated to several languages and used in over 30 nations. She developed the WE ACT Framework (Waste, Energy/water, Agriculture/food, Chemicals, Transportation) to organize the extensive range of environmental stewardship, while motivating action.
As a board member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, she hosts the Nurses for Healthy Environments podcast. She is on the boards of Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate and Climate Smart Missoula.
Beth has been honored with the Charlotte Brody Award, as a distinguished alumnus from the University of Montana, and as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.
Cara Cook
Director of ProgramsCara Cook, MS, RN, AHN-BC (she, her) is the Director of Programs for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. Her work focuses on elevating climate and health as a national priority by engaging nursing organizations and individual nurses in climate and health advocacy, education, and practice change. Prior to joining ANHE, Cara was a Local Care Coordinator with Healthways-Sharecare, Inc., coordinating care for high-risk patients in partnership with their primary care physicians as part of an insurance-based Patient-Centered Medical Home program. She has experience in critical care nursing working in both medical and trauma intensive care. Cara holds a Master’s in Community/Public Health Nursing through the University of Maryland.
Kathy Simmonds
Kathy Simmonds, PhD, MPH, WHNP-BC is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Women’s Health/Gender-Related Nurse Practitioner Track in the School of Nursing at the MGH Institute of Health Professions. Her clinical work and research has focused on reproductive health, and more recently has expanded to include climate change and health. She is particularly interested in intersections between climate justice and reproductive justice, and welcomes collaboration with others also interested in this area. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the MGH Institute’s Center for Climate Change, Climate Justice, and Health. She lives with her husband and son on Peaks Island in the beautiful Casco Bay of Maine.
Jeanne Leffers
Jeanne Leffers, PhD, RN, FAAN worked as a public health nurse in Tennessee and Virginia and has taught nursing for more than 30 years in Tennessee, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Currently she is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth College of Nursing where she taught in the BS, MS and PhD programs and served as Graduate Program Director. Much of her career has been spent in teaching and practice in community/public health nursing and she served on the National Executive Board of ACHNE (Association of Community Health Nursing Educators) and with the American Public Health Association, Public Health Nursing Section. Her special interests within community/public health are environmental health and global health where she focused her teaching, research and service. In her global health work, she has been a nurse volunteer in Uganda, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti, also serving as a faculty mentor to more than 100 UMass Dartmouth and University of Rhode Island nursing students on global service learning trips. She currently serves on the Steering Committee for Nursing Education at Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO), as the former HVO nursing education coordinator for Uganda and the Sigma Theta Tau International Service Task Force. Dr. Leffers co-authored the book Volunteering at Home and Abroad: Essential Guide for Nurses (2011 ), co-edited the book Global Health Nursing: Building and Sustaining Partnerships (2014), and is an author/editor of the ANHE Environmental Health in Nursing textbook. She served on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) from 2012-2017 where she chaired the Social Determinants of Health workgroup.
Karen Duderstadt
Karen G. Duderstadt PhD, RN is a Clinical Professor Emerita at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing. She is the past Director of the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program. She completed her PhD at UCSF in Nursing & Health Policy in 2006, and her research focused on Access to Care for low-income Children. She is a founding member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) and has served on the Steering Committee and the Policy and Advocacy Committee working on environmental and chemical policy reform. She was a Health Policy Fellow with the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment in 2012 and presented on an EPA panel on the impact of chemical policy on children’s health. She has presented and published on a wide range of child health policy topics and environmental health issues nationally including access to care for children living in low-income families, the impact of childhood overweight and obesity on the health care system, the impact of chemical policy on children’s health, and on tobacco policy and impact on youth.
Kathy Curtis
Kathleen Curtis, LPN, Executive Director of Clean and Healthy New York (CNHY), has 30 years of experience in the environmental health movement and is a widely recognized national leader whose policy expertise is in high demand. She is CHNY’s chief lobbyist and organizer, responsible for relationship with allies and policymakers. Her leadership has guided enactment of several local, state and federal policies regulating toxic chemicals. She co-coordinates the JustGreen Partnership and the Policy and Advocacy Forum of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. She was Senior Development Consultant at Healthy Building Network, co-leader of the Coming Clean Collaborative’s Policy Workgroup, and Executive Director at Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, where she was an author of Building Green without Going in the Red. Previously, she was Outreach Director at Environmental Planning Lobby (now Environmental Advocates of NY) and worked as a nurse.
Kathy is the recipient of Health Care Without Harm’s 2015 Charlotte Brody Award and a 2018 Children’s Environmental Health Champion Award from the NYS Children’s Environmental Health Centers. She is an author of numerous CHNY reports, including Is It In Us? Toxic Trespass, Regulatory Failure, and Opportunities for Action. She is on the steering committees of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition, SAFERStates, and Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. Kathy also serves on ANHE’s Board of Directors, the Advisory Board of the Occupational and Environmental Health Clinic of Eastern NY, Rotterdam Steering Committee, and Rotterdam Conservation Advisory Council.
Kathryn P. Jackman-Murphy
Kathy Murphy, Ed.D, MSN, RN received her nursing degree from St. Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing in Waterbury, Ct and her Associate Degree in Science from Mattatuck Community College, her Bachelor’s Degree in Science from Southern Connecticut State University, Master’s Degree in Science in Nursing from the University of Hartford, and her Doctorate in Education from the University of Hartford. Her doctoral thesis was on the Confidence of New Nurse Graduates in the Application of Environmental Health in the Nursing Process. Dr. Murphy has a vast experience in pediatric nursing, working in pediatrics at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Waterbury Hospital, and St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Ct, as well as a Public Health Nurse for the City of Waterbury. She has considerable experience in OB nursing having worked in the Family Birthing Center of Waterbury Hospital providing care to new families. She has taught OB clinical experiences for NVCC, Gateway Community College, Yale University and the University of Connecticut. Dr. Murphy is a Professor of Nursing at Naugatuck Valley Community College (NVCC), an adjunct faculty at Charter Oak State College and adjunct faculty at the University of Hartford where she teaches a course Environmental Health and Nursing. Dr. Murphy has several publications on environmental health and climate change and has presented at many conferences on these topics. She is an active member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, co-chair of the Education Workgroup and a member of the Steering Committee. She is the faculty advisor to NVCC’s NSNA chapter and former Connecticut Student Nurses Association advisor.
Laura Anderko
Dr. Laura Anderko PhD RN, professor at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing & Health Studies holds the Robert and Kathleen Scanlon Endowed Chair in Values Based Health Care. She is Co-Director of the federally funded Region 3 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, The Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment serving PA, VA, WV, DE, MD, and DC at Villanova University College of Nursing. The Mid-Atlantic Center provides outreach/education to health providers and communities, as well as consultation and referrals related to reproductive and children’s environmental health. Dr. Anderko is an educator and scholar in the field of public health, environmental health and nursing, publishing extensively on children’s environmental health. She has served on several federal advisory committees and NGO boards. She currently serves as a special advisor for the National Environmental Health Partnership (APHA), Project TENDR, and on the Steering Committee of ANHE. In 2013 she was recognized by the Obama White House as a Champion of Change for her advocacy efforts in Climate Change and Public Health.
Lisa Campbell
Vice-ChairDr. Lisa Campbell is a Professor and Director of the Post-Master’s Doctor of Nursing Practice Program at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing. Dr. Campbell engages students in real-world public health and policy projects. Her research includes the impact of incivilities on faculty and staff and strategies to create a civil workplace culture, changes in public health nursing practice and the Affordable Care Act, and WIC peer counselor support and breastfeeding. In 2017, Dr. Campbell led the Quad Council Coalition’s Task Force to revise the national Community/Public Health Nursing Competencies. She founded Population Health Consultants, LLC, a company committed to improving population health. Recently Dr. Campbell served as the director of the Victoria County Public Health Department that served three counties. She led a diverse staff and implemented initiatives to advance public health in these rural communities. Dr. Campbell is the immediate past chair of the American Public Health Associate Public Health Nursing Section, chairperson of the Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations (formerly the Quad Council Coalition), and a member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments’ Board of Directors. She enjoys traveling & hiking with her family, connecting with friends, gardening, cooking, and her rescue dog Hope.
Lisa M. Thompson
Dr. Thompson, PhD, RN, FNP, FAAN is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at Emory University and affiliated faculty in the Department of Environmental Health in the Rollins School of Public Health. She is the Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD program in nursing. She is a member of the Network for Evaluation and Implementation Sciences at Emory University (NEISE). She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurses. Dr. Thompson’s research focuses on environmental health disparities that contribute to adverse perinatal outcomes, specifically low birth weight, preterm birth, child stunting and cognitive development. Her contribution to nursing research is in global environmental health, specifically developing and evaluating interventions to reduce exposures to household air pollution from cooking fires in low-resource countries.
Mary Jane Mongillo-Williams
Mary Jane Mongillo-Williams, PhD, RN has practiced nursing for over 50 years as a Critical Care Nurse, Educator, Advocate and Administrator. For over four decades, Dr. Mary Jane Mongillo-Williams has fearlessly advanced the profession of nursing through advocacy, education, and leadership. Dr. Williams has taught four generations of Nurses in the State of Connecticut and has served on multiple statewide committees to advance the practice of nursing. She has influenced nurses to become more critically aware and politically involved in policy making at both the state and national levels. Her many accomplishments include advocating expanding the scope of practice for advanced practice RNs in Connecticut, helping to implement an assistance program for health care professionals, and obtaining increased funding for nursing and expanding enrollment in schools of nursing. Nationally, Dr. Williams was launched into a position of national leadership assisting nurses from around the country by serving on the steering committee that created the National Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and continuing to serve as one of its policy advisors. Dr. Williams is the recipient of multiple awards. Among the most recent is the Mary Jane M. Williams Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the nursing profession and health care.
Robyn Gilden
Dr. Robyn Gilden is an Assistant Professor in CPH Nursing and Director of the Environmental Health Certificate at University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON). She serves on the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments Steering Committee and Research Work Group. Prior to obtaining her PhD, she gained mastery of environmental health concepts through her post-master’s certificate in Environmental Health and work as a program manager in the Environmental Health Education Center. She worked in two staff positions in the role of community outreach and technical assistant for the Hazardous Substance Research Center for Region 3 and then for EnviRN.org and the Alliance of Nurses of Healthy Environments (ANHE) while it was located at UMSON. Dr. Gilden’s research interests include pesticide exposure and protecting unborn babies, infants, and children from exposure in the community. Her overarching goal is to assess pesticide exposure and related health effects in community children and develop interventions to reduce or prevent exposures. This goal is divided into two veins and she has received internal and foundation funding to support this endeavor, including several internal Designated Research Initiative Fund awards (DRIF), the Dean’s Research Scholar (DRS), and an UMB Institute for Clinical & Translational Research (ICTR) award.
Ruth McDermott-Levy
Dr. Ruth McDermott-Levy, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN is an associate professor at Villanova University’s M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing and Co-director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment. She has extensive community health nursing practice experience. Ruth served as the Director of the College of Nursing’s Center for Global and Public Health for 6 years. She has worked with Arab immigrant families in Philadelphia and families living in fracking communities of Northeastern Pennsylvania to study, educate, and reduce environmental health risks for each group. She is recognized as an expert in environmental health nursing education and has authored several publications regarding implementing environmental and climate health into the nursing curricula. She is an editor of the 2017 AJN awarded Book of the Year, Environmental Health in Nursing. In 2018 Ruth lived in Finland as a Fulbright-Saastamoinen Foundation Health and Environmental Sciences Scholar where she conducted research and taught at the University of Eastern Finland. She has been an invited speaker at Global Climate & Health Summit, in conjunction with COP24, Katowice, Poland in 2018 and at International Nurses Day at the United Nations in 2019. In 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Charlotte Brody Award for environmental health nursing leadership and Sigma Theta Tau International, Alpha Nu Chapter Excellence in Nursing Leadership Award. Ruth is committed to assuring healthy environments for children and their families.
Sandy Worthington
TreasurerSandy Worthington, MSN, WHNP, CNM has focused her career on reproductive health education. She has educated over 1,000 nurses to become women’s health nurse practitioners. She directed the first colposcopy education course for advanced practice clinicians in the US. She has developed numerous continuing education opportunities via in person conferences, web conferences, workshops, online courses, toolkits and publications. Examples of projects include Environmental Health: Green Choices program, HPV: A New Era in Patient Care, Putting Rick into Perspective, EC4U, and Clinical Breast Screening. Sandy earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She was the chair of the WHNP test committee of the National Certification Corporation and served on the NCC board of directors. She has also served on the BOD of The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals and The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. She has authored numerous publications and received many awards, including the year 2000 NPWH NP of the year.
Tom Engle
ChairTom Engle, MN, RN is mostly retired. His past work history includes County Health Director, County Mental Health Director, and Community Liaison Director Oregon Health Division. He was the chair of the organization of county health departments in Oregon for 10 years. He is on the board of the Oregon Public Health Association, Co-Chairs the Oregon Action Future of Nursing group, is on a County health department advisory board and the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health advisory board. He is on the APHA Governing Council. He has been on the board of the Association of Public Health Nurses. He facilitated passing the first local tobacco ordinances in Oregon. He was an early chair of the Oregon Breast and Cervical Cancer Coalition, and was an early scholar of the National Public Health Leadership Institute.
Antionella “Shelley” Upshaw
Antionella “Shelley” Upshaw, PhD, BS, RN is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, LA. She focuses on teaching undergraduate and graduate students about community populations at risk and major issues affecting community health and community health nursing. Dr. Upshaw is constantly striving to prepare the next generation of nurses to advance the health of the nation’s changing multiethnic, aging population.
Tammy Davis
Tammy Davis, BS, RN currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama and has been a Registered Nurse for 12 years. She specializes in clinical research- electrophysiology, cardiovascular surgery and stroke. Tammy is currently the Regional Coordinating Center Manager for StrokeNet at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Tammy has a passion for community service. She is a Girl Scout Lifetime Member, a member of the Birmingham Black Nurses Association (BBNA) and a Health Coordinator for her Faith Family. In BBNA she has served as the Continuing Education Coordinator and on the Heart Health Initiative with the American Heart Association. Tammy has also planned and organized two HIV education programs: one for college students and the other for Clergy. As several areas in Alabama are in environmental crisis, she is excited for the training the fellowship will provide so she can serve her community better.
Lisa Hartmayer
Lisa Hartmayer, RN, MSN, ANP-C, CCTN received a Bachelor’s of Science in nursing from the University of Connecticut in 2002. She obtained a Master’s of Science from the University of California San Francisco as an Adult Nurse Practitioner with a specialty in Occupational and Environmental Health in 2010. She is a volunteer Assistant Clinical Professor with the UCSF SON Department of Physiological Nursing. Lisa currently works as an inpatient nurse practitioner on the UCSF Kidney Transplant service.
She has been a member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments since its inception in 2008. She is passionate about making health care more environmentally sustainable. She has worked as a co-chair member of UCSF’s Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability as well as on UCSF’s grassroots green team.
She is currently involved in the Women Worker Biomonitoring Collaborative, research aimed at examining the presence of potential carcinogens and endocrine disruptors in female worker’s bodies.
Outside of work she enjoys biking, playing the saxophone, gardening and spending time with her husband and dog.
Liz Mizelle
Elizabeth (Liz) Mizelle, PhD, RN-BC, CNE is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina (NC). She graduated with a PhD in 2021 and her dissertation research was a community-informed mixed methods study on environmental heat stress, fluid intake and hydration status among eastern NC farmworkers. Liz is building a research program focused on the negative health effects of extreme weather on coastal, rural, and agricultural communities. She is an AgriSafe Nurse Scholar and a Daisy Faculty Award recipient.
Jennifer Wasco
Jennifer J. Wasco, DNP, RN is an assistant professor of nursing in the department of acute and tertiary care and the director of professional development and continuing education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing.
Prior to a career in academia, she has worked in various healthcare settings. She created innovative nursing continuing education pieces for an international nursing organization and educated large hospital institutions on technology-driven solutions to improve health outcomes through patient engagement. She has visited Capitol Hill to meet with Congressional leaders to educate them on climate change and human health. She was an invited guest lecturer for the UCLA Carbon Neutrality Faculty Course Curriculum Workshop on how to incorporate content on climate change and sustainability into the curriculum for the schools of nursing, medicine, and dentistry.
Dr. Wasco’s scholarly work focuses on public health with attention to environmental health and climate change issues. Through advanced quality education initiatives and programming for nurses, she hopes to improve the health of the world’s people.
Katie Huffling
Executive DirectorKatie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN (she, her) is a Certified Nurse-Midwife and is the Executive Director the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. Ms. Huffling works with nurses and national nursing organizations on a variety of environmental health issues including climate change, chemical policy, inclusion of environmental health into nursing education, and sustainable healthcare. Ms. Huffling has written numerous peer-reviewed articles on environmental health issues and was an editor of the recently released environmental health e-textbook “Environmental Health in Nursing” which won the 2017 AJN Book of the Year in Environmental Health.
Elizabeth Joseph
Elizabeth Joseph, APRN-BC, MPH is a Nurse Practitioner and an Educator working at one of the largest hospitals (Jackson Health System-JHS) in Florida for 30 years. She is the coordinator for Advanced Burn Life Support (ABLS) at JHS.
Ms. Joseph has volunteered in Haiti on three separate occasions after the 2010 earthquake and has contributed over 1000 hours of her time to develop nursing content and training guidelines for staff and administration at Bernard Mev hospital, Port O Prince, Haiti. While pursuing a Master’s Degree in Public Health, she completed an internship at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
In 2019, Ms. Joseph attained a Sustainable Development Certificate from Harvard University and her research interests lie in the field of Climate Emergency and its impacts on health. She is a certified climate speaker from the CLEO institute (Miami) and has delivered several presentations on Climate Change and its impact on health nationally and internationally. She is one of the founding member and the co-chair of the Climate Committee at her hospital. Her other interests lie in the field of Ecotourism, with the main objective being to promote health and wellbeing for tourists, park and lodge staff and local communities. She has conducted on-site research on Ecolodges in four continents.