Yale School of Nursing (YSN) faculty, alumni, and former postdoctoral fellows are being honored by the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) this week as new Fellows and award winners.
Selection to become a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) is a prestigious milestone in the career of a nurse or midwife, recognizing an individual’s significant contributions to healthcare through a rigorous peer-reviewed process.
The inductees and award winners will be recognized for their substantial and sustained impact on health and health care at the Academy’s annual Health Policy Conference, taking place on October 31-November 2 in Washington, DC. This year’s conference theme is “Courageous Transformations Towards an Equitable Future.”
“It is truly remarkable that YSN is represented so strongly among the Fellows in the 2024 cohort,” said Dean Azita Emami PhD, MSN, BSN, RNT, RN, FAAN. “The faculty being honored as FAANs this year have collective expertise that spans clinical practice, research, policy, and education. The next generation of Yale nurses and midwives are connecting with them every day. The YSN alumni FAANs and award winners represent classes from the 1970s through 2024, doing important, high-impact work in the United States and around the world. We extend our congratulations to all of them and to everyone being saluted at AAN this year.”
YSN Faculty
Nancy Cantey Banasiak, DNP, PNP, PPCNP-BC, APRN, FAAN
Wendy U. and Thomas C. Naratil Professor of Nursing
Pediatric Nurse Practitioner-Acute Care (PNP-AC) Specialty Director
Dr. Banasiak joined the YSN faculty in 1998 and practices at Thames River School-Based Health Center with a focus on asthma. Dr. Banasiak is a member of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners where she is secretary of the Asthma and Allergy Special Interest Group and has also served as a member of their executive committee and treasurer.
Dr. Banasiak’s research and publications focus on pediatric asthma and have been driven by her clinical experience working with children and their families in the outpatient setting. Her doctorial evidence-based project focused on the Implementation of the Asthma Control Test in primary care and was adopted by Yale New Haven Primary Care Center to improve patient outcomes. Among other awards and honors, Dr. Banasiak was named one of the top 25 Pediatric Nursing Professors in 2014 and is a recipient of the Nightingale Award for Excellence in Nursing.
Mary Ann Camilleri, JD, BSN, RN, FACHE, FAAN
Senior Lecturer in Nursing
Director, Healthcare Leadership, Systems, and Policy Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program
Dr. Camilleri’s career expertise is in the areas of healthcare law and regulation and executive management including operations, organizational redesign, quality and patient safety and innovative health care delivery models. She began her association with YSN in 2009 and has held senior management positions in acute, post-acute, and rehabilitation settings where she has been responsible for clinical, operations, regulatory compliance, quality, and financial performance. She has led several critical health care initiatives from definition through implementation.
As executive vice president and chief operating officer of one of the nation’s largest long-term acute care specialty hospitals, Dr. Camilleri led a strategic initiative to create the state’s first long-term acute care hospital (LTACH) satellite within an acute care hospital, improving access to specialized services for chronically ill, medically complex individuals. In each setting, Dr. Camilleri built organizational structures and programs that delivered top deciles performance in accreditation scores, patient experience, and other publicly reported metrics.
Shelli L. Feder, PhD, APRN, FNP-C, ACHPN, FPCN, FAHA, FAAN
Assistant Professor in Nursing
Associate Program Director, Yale National Clinician Scholars Program
Dr. Feder’s research program aims to create innovative models of care delivery that improve access to high-quality, timely palliative care for people with cardiopulmonary conditions. An organizational health services researcher, Dr. Feder’s research interests include palliative and end-of-life care delivery for people with non-cancer serious illness, health policy related to palliative and end-of-life care, medical informatics, and digital health interventions. She has expertise in qualitative and mixed methods and implementation science.
Dr. Feder and her team were recently awarded a three-year, multimillion dollar award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for a study entitled, “Identifying Successful Strategies of Specialist Palliative Care Implementation for People with Advanced Heart Failure.” Feder and her team were also recently awarded a three-year, $700,000 award from NHLBI for a study entitled, “Promoting Palliative Care for People with Heart Failure: The P3HF Pilot Study.”
S. Raquel Ramos, PhD, MBA, MSN, FNYAM, FAHA, FAAN
Associate Professor
A former postdoctoral fellow at YSN, Dr. S. Raquel Ramos has more than a decade of direct patient care experience as a nurse clinician in the areas of critical care, interventional cardiology, LGBTQ+ health, long-term care, and HIV clinical research as the protocol nurse for The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). It was in this role where Dr. Ramos observed the connection between HIV and cardiovascular disease risk.
Dr. Ramos’ program of research utilizes technology-driven behavioral interventions to prevent chronic conditions, such as HIV and CVD in minoritized populations. Her funding portfolio exceeds $10 million. She is currently funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to develop algorithms that will deliver personalized behavioral CVD prevention education using avatars. Dr. Ramos has also been awarded multiple R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Angela Richard-Eaglin, DNP, MSN, FNP-BC, CNE, FAANP, CDE, FAAN
Associate Dean for Equity (ADE)
Arriving at YSN in 2021, Dr. Richard-Eaglin is a champion for expanding diversity and inspiring cultural intelligence and cultural humility in health professions education and in clinical practice. As a Certified Professional Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and Unconscious Bias Facilitator and Coach through the Cultural Intelligence Center, Dr. Richard-Eaglin has developed and provides customized workshops that inform practicing health professionals, health professions educators, students, researchers, and staff in multiple departments on the application of CQ to organizational wellness, bias management, and mitigation of bias-influenced health outcomes.
Dr. Richard-Eaglin has led the development of multiple diversity, social justice, and antiracism initiatives. She also led the development of the cultural intelligence and diversity statement for the VA Office of Academic Affiliations national NP residency curriculum. Earlier this year Dr. Richard-Eaglin was inducted into the inaugural cohort of fellows in the Academy of Diversity Leaders in Nursing (FADLN).
Christine Rodriguez, NP, APRN, FNP-BC, MDiv, MA, FNYAM, FAAN
Assistant Dean for Simulation and Clinical Innovation
Dr. Rodriguez has an expansive clinical background in 2SLGBTQIA+ healthcare, racial equity and social justice, simulation, religion, and spirituality, as well as medical cannabis. Having served as a healthcare chaplain and practitioner, Dr. Rodriguez was placed in the quintessential position to understand her patient’s needs by utilizing a biopsychosociospiritual framework. As an Afro-Indigenous scholar, her own lived experiences and this framework allows her to relentlessly strive to advocate for the dismantling of the systemic oppressive ideologies found within our everyday lives.
Dr. Rodriguez continually strives to incorporate the latest technology into YSN simulation spaces, and earlier this year helped coordinate the school’s effort to purchase its first hyperrealistic manikin made from a three-dimensional body scan of a 7-year-old child with Down syndrome. The Simulation Team is also working with vendors focused on artificial intelligence (AI), artificial general intelligence (AGI), and extended reality (XR) technologies with the aim of infusing these modalities into YSN’s inaugural XR Immersion & Innovation Lab.
YSN Alumni
Dewi V. Brown-DeVeaux ’20 DNP, BS, RN-ONC, FAAN
NYU Langone Health
Dr. Brown-DeVeaux has held various leadership position at NYU Langone Health throughout her career. She assisted in creating a nurse-focused emergency response team that worked at the forefront, in collaboration with other medical professions, in an attempt to prevent cardiopulmonary arrest and promote good clinical outcomes. Dr. Brown-DeVeaux’s professional and personal background have fostered a deep commitment to elimination of health and health care disparities in the underserved health populations and she is currently serving as president of the Greater New York City Black Nurses Association.
Jane K. Dickinson ’93 MSN, PhD, RN, CDCES, FAAN
Teachers College Columbia University
Dr. Dickinson’s scholarly interests include diabetes education and diabetes management, Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and gestational diabetes mellitus. She also explores the role of context in the diabetes experience and the effect of language (words and messages) in diabetes care, as well as the impact of the diagnosis experience on diabetes outcomes. As Dr. Dickinson shares on her professional networking page, “My goal is to help people with diabetes find balance and a positive approach to managing their disease and living well.”
Marsha C. Sinanan ’24 DNP, MSN, MBA, RN NEA-BC, CPXP, FAAN
Mount Sinai Health System
In her 2024 YSN Commencement profile, Dr. Sinanan shared the single most important thing she learned about being a systems leader: “That soft skills are as important if not more so than technical skills, especially when multiple stakeholders are involved and stakes are high. To be successful as a systems leader, one must constantly counterbalance needs of the organization with compassion for people, while executing the mission and vision of that organization.”
Karen Kane McDonnell ’83 MSN, PhD, RN, FAAN
University of South Carolina School of Nursing
Dr. McDonnell is the principal investigator of the Lung Cancer Survivorship Research Program. The program’s primary research interest involves developing and testing behavioral and supportive care interventions for family dyads to promote cancer risk-reducing behavior modification and symptom management. Concept areas include symptom management, self-management, mindfulness-based stress reduction, physical activity, health-related quality of life, dyadic interventions and analysis and mobile health.
Nancy A. Allen PhD, ANP-BC, FADCES, FAAN
University of Utah School of Nursing
As a postdoctoral fellow at YSN, Dr. Allen studied self and family self-management of chronic diseases in vulnerable populations. Her current program of research is focused on diabetes as a chronic disease and interventions using technology and lifestyle changes. Dr. Allen’s research encompasses two vulnerable populations: Hispanic population with Type 2 diabetes and individuals with both diabetes and dementia.
Cheryl Chia-Hui Chen ’99 DNSc, MSN, BSN, RNC, FAAN
National Taiwan University School of Nursing
Dean Chen’s research focuses on identifying effective nursing interventions to manage hospital-acquired complications and their sequelae including delirium, malnutrition (i.e., dysphagia, weight loss), and functional decline. Dr. Chen is also the chief nurse executive at NTU Hospital, providing nursing leadership for the flagship NTU Hospital and five affiliated hospitals within the NTU Healthcare System. In this role, Chen has focused on collaboration across the system, analyzing opportunities for optimizing infrastructure and resources, leading changes in care delivery, boosting employer retention, and developing leaders.
Ramón Lavandero ’79 MSN, MA, FAAN
American Association of Critical Care Nurses
2024 Health Care Leader Award
A trailblazing Puerto Rican nurse leader who has dedicated his career to advancing the professional, and improving work environments, Ramón Lavandero is currently serving as the senior strategic advisor and organizational historian for the American Association of Critical Care Nurses. Ramón’s professional career has focused on acute and critical care—with clinical, academic and administrative roles in academic healthcare institutions on both coasts and in the Midwest. He was honored with YSN’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017.
Read the full list of 2024 Fellows here.