Jessica LeClair, MPH, BSN, RN, shares her drive for environmental justice
Jessica LeClair, MPH, RN is a clinical faculty member with the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, where she integrates climate change and planetary health curriculum into undergraduate and graduate nursing education. LeClair has over thirteen years of experience as a public health nurse with the Ho-Chunk Nation and Public Health Madison and Dane County (PHMDC), where she provided a range of public health services, while also working on population-level equity issues. LeClair serves on the Sustainable Madison Committee, the Dane County Climate Change Council’s Community Team and the Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action; she also co-chairs the Global Nurses Climate Change Committee with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. LeClair is a student with the UW-Madison School of Nursing PhD program.
Beth Schenk
Elizabeth Schenk, PhD, MHI, RN-BC, FAAN is Providence-WSU Nurse Scientist and Sustainability Coordinator at Providence St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana. In addition, she is assistant research professor in Nursing at Washington State University in Spokane. Dr. Schenk co-leads nursing research efforts at St. Pat’s, and also across Providence St. Joseph Health, working with nursing leaders at 50 hospitals.
Dr. Schenk leads efforts for environmental stewardship at St. Patrick, and has worked with hospitals across the health system to reduce environmental impacts for the past 25 years. In her academic work, she developed the “Nurses Environmental Awareness Tool” which has been used in multiple states and several countries to assess awareness of the environmental impacts of hospital-based healthcare. She led the development of the CHANT: Climate, Health and Nursing Tool. She was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing as a Fellow in 2018. Dr. Schenk serves on the national board of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
