Azita Emami

In this episode, Alison chats with Azita Emami, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean of the Yale School of Nursing. Dean Emami shares how the Nursing School is evolving, innovating, and focusing on its legacy of impactful research to improve the health of all people.  Dr. Azita Emami joined the Yale School of Nursing as Dean in 2023. She is an active researcher, an international advocate for expanding nursing’s role in primary care, and a powerful voice for global equity of healthcare access.  Dean Emami serves as a trustee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and on several professional boards and committees. She was a U.S. leader of the international Nursing Now initiative, a three-year global campaign (2018-2020) in collaboration with the International Council of Nurses and the World Health Organization that raised the visibility, status, and education opportunities of nurses worldwide. She also led the U.S. “Year of the Nurse and the Midwife” effort (2021), part of a global U.N. initiative. Equity of opportunity in nursing education is a focal point for Dean Emami, who has been a national leader in developing efforts directed at making diversity, equity and inclusion a priority at schools of nursing. She initiated creation of the nation’s first Center for Antiracism in Nursing, and has written and spoken in numerous professional settings about the ways in which both patients and the profession benefit from understanding and addressing implicit bias and historical racism. Dr. Emami has forged strong relationships and collaborative exchanges with nursing programs in many countries, including Thailand and China. She fosters in both faculty and students a perspective that encourages global engagement and emphasizes the importance of understanding impact on health outcomes of the social determinants of health. Dr. Emami earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the renowned Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, where she grew up after emigrating from Iran. She earned a master’s degree in international health care from Karolinska and the Red Cross College of Nursing; a nursing education degree with a teaching certification, and a doctorate in medical sciences from Karolinska.  The Dean’s academic leadership experience spans two countries and 25 years, including positions as Executive Dean of the University of Washington School of Nursing, Dean of the College of Nursing at Seattle University, Head of the Division of Nursing in the Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, and Academic Leader in the Division of Elderly Care in the Department of Nursing at the Karolinska Institutet. Dr. Emami maintains an active research schedule, with collaborations around the world. Her research reflects her interest in topics ranging from dementia care, challenges in cross-cultural care, and immigrant healthcare policy to the development of cultural competence in clinical nurses. She is internationally recognized for her innovative research on dementia, including development of an oral data collection method for a biomarker of stress. Her research has resulted in more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals nationally and internationally.