Speaker Bios

Diane Ash Drake

Dr. Diane Ash Drake is a nurse research scientist. As a volunteer clinical faculty at the University of California Irvine School of Nursing she works with a multidisciplinary study team to investigate the measurement of burnout and test wellbeing interventions for emergency room nurses working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Drake was the nursing research scientist at Mission Hospital, Mission Viejo, CA during three consecutive Magnet designations. She was the recipient of a three-year National Research Service Award in the Symptom Management Training Program at the University of California San Francisco School of Nursing. She was an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale School of Nursing and worked with a team to coordinate an online international nurse informatics library with Stanford University. She also was the Yale site coordinator for a Johns Hopkins multi-institutional clinical trial of exercise prescription for women receiving breast cancer treatment. She has been an oncology clinical nurse specialist with extensive clinical experience in patient care, community cancer prevention programs, professional oncology educational and program development. Previous appointments were assistant clinical professor at the University of California Irvine, School of Medicine, Hematology/Oncology Division and the UCLA School of Nursing to investigate tobacco control practices among nurses, exercise prescription for breast and prostate cancer prevention and cancer patient symptom management. She has expertise investigating hospital nurse fatigue with research publications and presentations at clinical and research conferences.
 

M. Christina R. Esperat

Dr. Maria Christina Esperat, RN, PhD, FAAN, the CH Foundation Regents Professor in Rural Health Disparities at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences School of Nursing (TTUHSC SON) where she has had extensive experience in program development, implementation, and evaluation. Among her activities, she directed and coordinated multiple grant programs funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services.  She serves as a Practice Consultant for the Larry Combest Community Health and Wellness Center, a nurse-led primary health care clinic which is a designated federally qualified health care center (FQHC). Dr. Esperat has helped secured over $55 million in grant funding.

She received her PhD degree from The University of Texas at Austin and a certificate from the Johnson & Johnson/UCLA Health Care Executive Program in August 2003, was a 2005 Primary Health Care Fellow of the Health Resources and Services Organization Bureau of Primary Health Care, and a 2005 Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow. She was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing in 2004. She served as a member of the National Advisory Council on Nursing Education and Practice, Division of Nursing, Bureau of Health Professions in 2001-2005, Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Nursing Centers Consortium in 2006-2008 and was a member of the Research and Evaluation Committee of the Council of Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools from 2004-2007. She has served as chair or member for numerous review panels for the US DHHS Health Resources and Services Administration and National Institutes of Health.

Her current research and program interests are mainly in chronic disease management, primary care, and behavioral health integration, and interprofessional collaborative practice. She continues to be involved in developing programs for Community Health Workers. She is also involved in capacity building for health care and nursing education and practice in the Philippines. She is a Professor in the TTUHSC SON Graduate Program, where she teaches in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. She has over 30 published articles and 7 book chapters, and international and national presentations at peer-reviewed nursing conferences.

Barbara St. Pierre-Schneider

Dr. Barbara St. Pierre-Schneider is a Professor and Endowed Chair in Gerontological Nursing Excellence at the University of Texas Arlington. She is nationally known and accomplished senior nursing faculty with extensive experience in nursing clinical practice (oncology and medical-surgical) and research. She attended LSU, University of Washington, and UCLA and earned a BSN, MS, and PhD in nursing at these institutions. She completed two postdoctoral fellowships—one at UCLA and the other at Pennsylvania State University. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and other agencies for various research efforts with over $8 million dollars in grant funding focused on the white blood response to skeletal muscle injury. She has published over 56 articles and 2 book chapters. She has presented at national and international nursing and scientific conferences. She is the author of the book titled, “The Shortest Grant writing Book You Will Ever Need” and has taught grant writing to nursing or non-nursing PhD students for more than 10 years. She has held various leadership positions including Associate Dean for Research, Co-Director of the NIH IDeA CTRN-IN Grant and Director of the Applied Biomedical Research Laboratory. She received several research and scholarship awards including Outstanding Researcher and LSU Health Sciences Center Nursing Alumnus. She is also a fellow of American Academy of Nursing and Western Academy of Nursing and a member of Sigma Theta Tau Honor Society.