February 13, 2025
Go Global! March 14th, 2025
Date: Friday, March 14 12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Location: Health Sciences Education Building Room 101
The University of Washington School of Nursing Center for Global Health Nursing invites you to join us March 14 at 12:30pm for our annual event.
This year’s event theme will focus on women’s health and will include a catered lunch, feature researchers and rising stars in the field of global health, and give attendees an opportunity to view poster presentations from our Global Health Nursing Certificate students and 2024 study abroad participants!
Plenary Speaker
Dr. Nancy Woods, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor and Dean Emeritus
Nancy Woods, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a renowned figure in nursing. Recognized by her research and academic leadership throughout her career, Dr. Woods was given the distinction of “Living Legend” by the American Academy of Nursing in 2017. In addition to her long research career, she was the dean of the University of Washington School of Nursing from 1998 – 2008, and was pivotal in launching, with the expertise of faculty and students at the School of Nursing, the first Doctor of Nursing Practice degree program on the West Coast.
Dr. Woods began her research focusing on young adult women’s roles and their health as they entered the labor force. She led the first prevalence study of perimenstrual symptoms in the US in the early 1980s and identified a variety of symptom patterns linking symptoms to reproductive endocrine measure, stressors and stress response biomarkers. Over the course of her research career, Dr. Woods co-established the first NIH-funded Center for Women’s Health Research and the Seattle Midlife Women’s Health Study, following over 500 women for up to 20 years. She also was an investigator for the Women’s Health Initiative and the MsFLASH study, focusing on symptom management for hot flashes. Her work has significantly advanced the understanding of menstrual cycle symptoms, menopause, and healthy aging.
Dr. Woods served on multiple national advisory committees, including the first NIH National Advisory Committee for Women’s Health, which established the original NIH agenda for Women’s Health Research. She has also served as president of the American Academy of Nursing, the North American Menopause Society, and the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.
Since retiring from the University of Washington in 2017, Dr. Woods continues to advocate for women’s health by volunteering her time working with the Women Living Better, an organization designed to provide women with evidence-based information about menopause.
Guest Speaker
Karin Huster, BSN, MPH
UW graduate Karin Huster earned her BSN in 2005 and her MPH from the DGH in 2013. After working for nine years as an RN at Harborview Medical Center’s Trauma ICU, she focused her work on responding to humanitarian emergencies: as a field epidemiologist or in emergency coordination roles for MSF’s (Doctors without Borders) emergency pool as well as in her health advisor function for USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance. Her work has taken her throughout the world, to meet the needs of refugees and other marginalized populations. A small list of her work experiences include spending 2014-2016 in West Africa during the height of the Ebola epidemic, responding to a large yellow fever outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017, responding to a dangerous Ebola outbreak in the DRC in 2018, managing a MSF emergency war hospital in Iraq in 2018, volunteering with King County Public Health on their COVID response in the homeless population and spending 5 months in Gaza in 2024. She is tireless. She currently serves as a Medical Coordinator for MSF in Gaza. She disseminates the injustices she witnesses in her work through Op-eds in the New York Times, via video blogs on YouTube and social media. In 2024 she was awarded the distinguished Alumna Award from the UWSON.