Rebecca O. Shasanmi Ellis is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the intersection of health workforce development, mental health, and structural determinants of health. Dr. Ellis is currently chair-elect of the Public Health Nursing (PHN) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Before her transition to Georgetown, she was an instructor at Emory University since 2018; and provided care as a registered nurse at SisterLove, Inc. (first Black women’s HIV org in the south) and Our House Health (formerly CAPN Clinics; free clinics in homeless shelters) in mental health and women’s health in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Ellis received her PhD and MS in Nursing from Emory University; a Master of Public Health in 2009 from Morehouse School of Medicine; and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from George Washington University (2013), where she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Careers in Nursing Scholar. She has notably worked for the World Health Organization during the Ebola response in Nigeria. In August 2022 she received the Top PhD Student Abstract Prize from the International Philosophy of Nursing Society for an ongoing study of bioethics phenomena – moral distress in nurses into a theoretical framework for structural racism and moral distress. This framework was featured as a Knowledge Session at the Nursology.com – Virtual Nursing Theory Week Conference in March 2023. Her research on the moral distress and mental health experiences of healthcare workers who worked during COVID-19 response, and the relationship to structural racism (proxy, chronic workplace discrimination) brings forward how healthcare must respond to a broader array of structural constraints to health worker well-being and patient outcomes. Her project will focus on critical humanism in terms of African indigenous philosophy, Ubuntu, power, structural racism, and nursing ways of knowing.
Rebecca O. Shasanmi Ellis is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the intersection of health workforce development, mental health, and structural determinants of health. Dr. Ellis is currently chair-elect of the Public Health Nursing (PHN) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Before her transition to Georgetown, she was an instructor at Emory University since 2018; and provided care as a registered nurse at SisterLove, Inc. (first Black women’s HIV org in the south) and Our House Health (formerly CAPN Clinics; free clinics in homeless shelters) in mental health and women’s health in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Ellis received her PhD and MS in Nursing from Emory University; a Master of Public Health in 2009 from Morehouse School of Medicine; and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from George Washington University (2013), where she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Careers in Nursing Scholar. She has notably worked for the World Health Organization during the Ebola response in Nigeria. In August 2022 she received the Top PhD Student Abstract Prize from the International Philosophy of Nursing Society for an ongoing study of bioethics phenomena – moral distress in nurses into a theoretical framework for structural racism and moral distress. This framework was featured as a Knowledge Session at the Nursology.com – Virtual Nursing Theory Week Conference in March 2023. Her research on the moral distress and mental health experiences of healthcare workers who worked during COVID-19 response, and the relationship to structural racism (proxy, chronic workplace discrimination) brings forward how healthcare must respond to a broader array of structural constraints to health worker well-being and patient outcomes. Her project will focus on critical humanism in terms of African indigenous philosophy, Ubuntu, power, structural racism, and nursing ways of knowing.
