Featured Speakers

Sarah DiGregorio
Journalist and Author

Sarah DiGregorio is the critically acclaimed author of Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human and Taking Care: The Story of Nursing and its Power to Change Our World. Sarah is a journalist who has written on health care and other topics for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Slate, Insider, and Jezebel.
 

Cheryl Woods Giscombe, PhD
Author, Senior Associate Dean and Chief Wellness Officer & Levine Family Distinguished Professor of Quality of Life, Health Promotion, and Wellness, School of Nursing, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Cheryl Giscombe is a health scientist with over 100 publications and presentations about mind-body health and wellness, mindfulness, quality of life, and joy. Cheryl helps others through sharing lessons learned as a social and health psychologist, a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner, and a holistic health consultant. She mentors to improve the health and wellness of people so they can be their best selves and maintains a research focus on reducing undesirable health conditions related to how we experience and cope with stress. 

Sofia Aragon, JD
Executive Director for the Washington Center for Nursing

Sofia Aragon is the Executive Director for the Washington Center for Nursing, which is committed to advancing nursing leadership, diversity, and workforce development.  Sofia uses her 20 years of public policy experience to advocated on state legislative issues representing the interest of RNs, school nurses, and advanced practice nurses. She served on the Burien City Council and in 2022, the council elected her mayor. Her work has focused on addressing environmental exposure and health disparities issues, race issues, homelessness and affordable housing, in addition to raising awareness of the growing opioid epidemic and gaps in public safety.  

Lisa Summers, DrPH
Health Policy Educator and President, Healing Politics

Lisa Summers sees Healing Politics as the culmination of a career grounded in clinical care and education before expanding to policy and advocacy. Lisa is co-founder of Healing Politics and taught health policy at Yale School of Nursing. She practiced clinically for 20 years as a nurse and midwife and held faculty positions in schools of nursing and medicine. She spent 11 years at the American College of Nurse-Midwives, where she was Director of Professional Services, and held policy positions at the American Nurses Association and Centering Healthcare Institute