Our Team: NIGH’s UN DPI NGO Youth Representatives
The following people served on NIGH's 2014 UN DPI-NGO Representatives, Youth Representatives, Mentors and Advisors and, in these roles, developed NIGH's 'Global Online Briefing' to prepare nurses to fully participate in a survey called 'The World Nurses Want' in collaboration with the 'UN's Post-2015 Agenda.'
Gloria Chan, BSN, AA, RN-BC, CCRN-CSC, is serving as NIGH's first UN DPI NGO Representative in New York City. She is a senior staff Cardiothoracic ICU nurse at Maimonides Medical Center located in Brooklyn, NY. Within the unit, she serves as Lead RN in the Beacon Award project for the unit and works on an insulin protocol compliance project. She is board certified in Medical-Surgical, Progressive Care and Cardiac Surgery nursing. Gloria is a graduate of the undergraduate nursing program from New York University (NYU) College of Nursing in May of 2008. In the future, she hopes to become a Nurse Anesthetist. Currently, Gloria serves as President of Upsilon, NYU's chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing (STTI) as well as delegate.
Working within STTI a chapter, regional and international levels, Gloria has been appointed to the Rising Star Task Force and has worked within Region 14 of STTI to create and help lead the United Nations Interest Group as well as host the past Region 14 Biennial Convention focused on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. As President of Upsilon Chapter, she intends to continue to foster the growth of its members such as the promotion of learning through knowledge and professional development of nurses with numerous research events, lecture series and journal club meetings, as well as nurturing nurses through its personal mentorship program. Through experience with STTI’s United Nations Task Force, Gloria has had a chance to understand the issues that are discussed within the United Nations such as healthcare and economic disparities between different countries, climate change, maternal/ child health issues and human trafficking.
As a bedside nurse, Gloria was afforded the unique opportunity to have the first hand ability to view active discussions about these global health issues. Within her own nursing community, she was able to teach and provide a forum of discussion about these issues. From her own experience, it is clear: education fosters awareness and empowerment, creating its own momentum for change. Nurses truly have the unique ability to educate, empower and advocate. In collaboration with the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health, Gloria is aiming to create a unique nursing impact upon global health — with a particular focus on China and Chinese people living across the world.
David (DJ) Schnabel, Jr., BSN, RN, is serving as one of NIGH’s official United Nations DPI NGO Youth Representatives in New York City. He currently practices as a Pediatric Cardiac ICU nurse at the New York Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center. He is a graduate of William Paterson University, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree as a double major in Nursing and Spanish (2012). He currently holds a certification in medical interpreting, and is a Spanish medical interpreter for his hospital.
During his studies at William Paterson University, DJ began community outreach involvement as a leader for the school’s Peer Health Advocate Group, where he annually attended the Peer Institute Leadership conference. He applied this training to organize programs and events as his school, which aimed to educate fellow college students on health-related topics. These programs were ultimately recognized at the 2012 Peer Institute leadership conference, where DJ was invited as a keynote speaker. There, he presented to other colleagues on the topic of developing effective health awareness programs.
As one of NIGH's NGO Youth Representative to the United Nations, his aim is to develop his own understanding of global partnerships, as well as to apply his current experience as a leader in community outreach. His participation with the UN is expanding his own understanding of pressing world issues. He is committed to collaborative involvement, with NIGH, to increase the world’s participation of nurses in global outreach and to facilitate United Nations mandates by mobilizing social change.
MENTORS
Holly Shaw, PhD, RN - Associate Professor, College of Nursing and Public Health, Adelphi University serves as a Director of the UN DPI NGO Executive Committee, representing the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health. In addition to several leadership positions on Executive Boards, Dr. Shaw is an active member of committees in the UN NGO community, including the NGO Committee on Mental Health, the NGO Health Committee, the Committee on Teaching about the UN (CTAUN), NGO Commission on the Status of Women, NY and the Working Group on Girls (WGG).
For more than three decades, Dr. Shaw has been an internationally recognized expert in mental health, promoting healing and recovery across the life cycle for individuals, groups and communities following bereavement, trauma and crisis. She earned a BS at Boston University, Boston, Mass., MSN as a clinical nurse specialist in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing (1992) and PhD at Adelphi University, Garden City, NY (1998), and in 2013, a masters certificate in Global Mental Health, Trauma & Recovery, Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, Porano, Italy and Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. Shaw lectures and consults at universities, medical centers and community-based organizations throughout the US and Canada, Cambodia, Europe, Mexico, Israel, Jordan, Thailand, The Peoples’ Republic of China, and Uganda. Her professional accomplishments include Global Nursing Advocacy and Consultation in the US, Africa, Asia and the Middle East regarding academic and program development, clinical health and mental health services for vulnerable populations, and professional support, self-care and education. She has received international faculty development grants to study healing experiences of former child combatants in Uganda and post conflict recovery in Jerusalem, Israel and Amman, Jordan. She maintains a clinical and consultation practice in Sea Cliff, NY, where she provides interventions for individuals and professionals responding to trauma, crisis and posttraumatic stress.
Deva-Marie Beck, PhD, RN — is a nurse, health educator, author, scholar and multi-media specialist — serving, in all of these roles, as International Co-Director of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health — NIGH World. In 2004, she joined several Nightingale scholars and related activisits to co-found NIGH — from Florence Nightingale’s legacy — to raise public awareness for health by empowering and engaging women — especially nurses and midwives — to advocate for the pressing global health needs of our time. Currently, she serves on the development team of NIGH’s global online outreach and is collaborating with a growing grassroots-to-global team of NIGH Board and Advisors to widen and strengthen participation in NIGH, worldwide. In this role, she represents NIGH at the United Nations in New York City as a UN DPI NGO Representative — focused on increasing awareness about health-related UN Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) and the emerging UN 'Sustainable Development Goals' (2015-2030).
She is Chair of NIGH’s global awareness campaign for ‘Daring, Caring & Sharing to Save Mothers’ Lives’ and Editor-in-Chief of NIGH’s online global portal that received 2.1 million hits, from 146 nations, across 2013. Dr. Beck has traveled to Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the South Pacific and across the United States and Canada for related discussions, meetings, workshops, conferences and keynote presentations. Dr. Beck’s presentations and workshops — focused on global cross-cultural understanding, leadership, communications and media skills — have been featured in China and India, Europe and Africa, the South Pacific and South America, Canada and the US, including for seven national conferences [2003 to 2011] of the American Holistic Nurses Association [AHNA] and — for NIGH World — through AHNA-based ANCC Credentialing — has provided CEs at independent workshops based in New York City and the Seattle, Washington region.
She has been a keynote speaker at major health, nursing and nursing student conferences across the world. Collaborating with the World Health Organization (WHO) she has recently produced a video entitled “At the Heart of It All: Nurses & Midwives for Universal Health Coverage.” In 2008, she also co-produced a video with WHO, entitled “Nurses & Midwives: Now More Than Ever for a Healthy World,” now featured online in 8 language versions.
As co-author of Florence Nightingale Today: Healing, Leadership, Global Action (2005) and numerous related articles and book chapters, Dr. Beck has contributed new scholarship on Nightingale's extensive international work, recommending how Nightingale's legacy can further inform and strengthen 21st century nursing practice and global citizenship.
Patricia Eckardt, PhD, RN - Associate Professor Stony Brook Medicine School of Nursing, Dr. Eckardt has demonstrated expertise as a quantitative methodologist, program evaluator, and clinician in corporate and academic medical center settings. A clinician for over thirty years, she holds a PhD in Educational Psychology, Quantitative Methodology. She is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, trained in LEAN, which contributes to her success in programmatic and process evaluation.
UN DPI NGO ADVISORS
Raissa Lynn G. Sanchez, BSN, RN, is serving NIGH as a consultant and mentor to NIGH’s first team of UN-DPI NGO Representatives based in New York City. This mentorship arises from her own official role to support the Global Action of Sigma Theta Tau, as their first-appointed ‘Youth Representative to the United Nations.’ This role includes attending Department of Public Information – Non-Governmental Organization (DPI-NGO) briefings and assisting in the dissemination information related to UN activities. In the April 2012 issue of Careful Nursing News, Raissa Lynn's article, "Nurses at the UN," was published.
Her own clinical nursing career has begun with her role as an Emergency Department RN at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center — a Level II Trauma Center in Paterson, New Jersey. She is currently a Cardiothoracic ICU nurse at the New York Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from William Paterson University in May 2011. Prior to graduating, Raissa Lynn was inducted into the Iota Alpha Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, International Honor Society of Nursing. Raissa Lynn’s peers and colleagues — within the Honor Society of Nursing — have fostered and supported her growth as a leader into the role of Vice-President of the Iota Alpha Chapter.
Though the seed of interest for global health was planted as a child, it didn’t sprout for Raissa Lynn until early 2011. Then, she traveled to her first medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic as a nursing student with Dr. Joanna Hofmann and the Foundation for Peace. Raissa Lynn's volunteerism and leadership was published in community newsletters, including Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine, and WPU Magazine. She remains heavily involved in the planning of yearly medical missions to the Dominican Republic as a mission leader by way of fundraising and facilitating opportunities for nursing students to refine their assessment skills.
Timothy F. Shi, BSN, RN, works at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on the Leukemia and Lymphoma Unit. He has also held the position of corresponding secretary on the E-Board of the Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) for the last two years, where he also holds the position of STTI's United Nations DPI NGO Youth Representative. In this capacity, he has attended workshops on Global Women’s Health, and on CTAUN — the Conference on Teaching at the UN. Tim also collaborated with NIGH to develop a workshop titled “Global Health Nurses & The United Nations: Education Practice & Advocacy” — convened in New York City in April, 2014. The purpose of this workshop was to help education nurses and nursing students on the importance of having a nursing voice in the global community — especially now with the development of the sustainable developmental goals.
Tim is also currently the President and a founding member of the recently formed New York City Chapter of the American Association for Men in Nursing, a group created to support men in nursing within the New York City area.
GLOBAL BRIEFING WEBMASTER
Darren Panicali, BSN, is a graduate of the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, where he recently received his bachelor's degree in nursing with an honors designation from the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. Post-licensure, he will begin practice as a registered nurse at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
Early on in his undergraduate career, Darren served as a health educator with the non-profit Peer Health Exchange and program intern with the "I Have A Dream" Foundation. Working to deliver education to underrepresented youth, he saw how leadership and education have the power to drastically change life trajectories. Inspired to promote these values, Darren went on to join the boards of his school and state chapters of the National Student Nurses Association, where he respectively served as President and Community Health Director. He has worked diligently to promote the interests of his fellow nursing students and the greater community, and he aspires to take his influence to the next level as a full-fledged nurse. After volunteering in rural medical clinics in Guatemala, Darren began to adopt a more global vision for health promotion, which has led to his collaboration with NIGH.
In the spring of 2012, Darren was named a Revson Scholar by the Charles H. Revson Foundation for academic excellence, public service and community action, and upon graduation from Hunter-Bellevue, the dean granted him the Excellence in School Leadership Award. A strong believer in nurses’ potential in the global sphere, Darren looks forward to working further with NIGH in the future.
Gloria Chan, BSN, AA, RN-BC, CCRN-CSC, is serving as NIGH's first UN DPI NGO Representative in New York City. She is a senior staff Cardiothoracic ICU nurse at Maimonides Medical Center located in Brooklyn, NY. Within the unit, she serves as Lead RN in the Beacon Award project for the unit and works on an insulin protocol compliance project. She is board certified in Medical-Surgical, Progressive Care and Cardiac Surgery nursing. Gloria is a graduate of the undergraduate nursing program from New York University (NYU) College of Nursing in May of 2008. In the future, she hopes to become a Nurse Anesthetist. Currently, Gloria serves as President of Upsilon, NYU's chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing (STTI) as well as delegate.
Working within STTI a chapter, regional and international levels, Gloria has been appointed to the Rising Star Task Force and has worked within Region 14 of STTI to create and help lead the United Nations Interest Group as well as host the past Region 14 Biennial Convention focused on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. As President of Upsilon Chapter, she intends to continue to foster the growth of its members such as the promotion of learning through knowledge and professional development of nurses with numerous research events, lecture series and journal club meetings, as well as nurturing nurses through its personal mentorship program. Through experience with STTI’s United Nations Task Force, Gloria has had a chance to understand the issues that are discussed within the United Nations such as healthcare and economic disparities between different countries, climate change, maternal/ child health issues and human trafficking.
As a bedside nurse, Gloria was afforded the unique opportunity to have the first hand ability to view active discussions about these global health issues. Within her own nursing community, she was able to teach and provide a forum of discussion about these issues. From her own experience, it is clear: education fosters awareness and empowerment, creating its own momentum for change. Nurses truly have the unique ability to educate, empower and advocate. In collaboration with the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health, Gloria is aiming to create a unique nursing impact upon global health — with a particular focus on China and Chinese people living across the world.
David (DJ) Schnabel, Jr., BSN, RN, is serving as one of NIGH’s official United Nations DPI NGO Youth Representatives in New York City. He currently practices as a Pediatric Cardiac ICU nurse at the New York Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center. He is a graduate of William Paterson University, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree as a double major in Nursing and Spanish (2012). He currently holds a certification in medical interpreting, and is a Spanish medical interpreter for his hospital.
During his studies at William Paterson University, DJ began community outreach involvement as a leader for the school’s Peer Health Advocate Group, where he annually attended the Peer Institute Leadership conference. He applied this training to organize programs and events as his school, which aimed to educate fellow college students on health-related topics. These programs were ultimately recognized at the 2012 Peer Institute leadership conference, where DJ was invited as a keynote speaker. There, he presented to other colleagues on the topic of developing effective health awareness programs.
As one of NIGH's NGO Youth Representative to the United Nations, his aim is to develop his own understanding of global partnerships, as well as to apply his current experience as a leader in community outreach. His participation with the UN is expanding his own understanding of pressing world issues. He is committed to collaborative involvement, with NIGH, to increase the world’s participation of nurses in global outreach and to facilitate United Nations mandates by mobilizing social change.
MENTORS
Holly Shaw, PhD, RN - Associate Professor, College of Nursing and Public Health, Adelphi University serves as a Director of the UN DPI NGO Executive Committee, representing the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health. In addition to several leadership positions on Executive Boards, Dr. Shaw is an active member of committees in the UN NGO community, including the NGO Committee on Mental Health, the NGO Health Committee, the Committee on Teaching about the UN (CTAUN), NGO Commission on the Status of Women, NY and the Working Group on Girls (WGG).
For more than three decades, Dr. Shaw has been an internationally recognized expert in mental health, promoting healing and recovery across the life cycle for individuals, groups and communities following bereavement, trauma and crisis. She earned a BS at Boston University, Boston, Mass., MSN as a clinical nurse specialist in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing (1992) and PhD at Adelphi University, Garden City, NY (1998), and in 2013, a masters certificate in Global Mental Health, Trauma & Recovery, Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, Porano, Italy and Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. Shaw lectures and consults at universities, medical centers and community-based organizations throughout the US and Canada, Cambodia, Europe, Mexico, Israel, Jordan, Thailand, The Peoples’ Republic of China, and Uganda. Her professional accomplishments include Global Nursing Advocacy and Consultation in the US, Africa, Asia and the Middle East regarding academic and program development, clinical health and mental health services for vulnerable populations, and professional support, self-care and education. She has received international faculty development grants to study healing experiences of former child combatants in Uganda and post conflict recovery in Jerusalem, Israel and Amman, Jordan. She maintains a clinical and consultation practice in Sea Cliff, NY, where she provides interventions for individuals and professionals responding to trauma, crisis and posttraumatic stress.
Deva-Marie Beck, PhD, RN — is a nurse, health educator, author, scholar and multi-media specialist — serving, in all of these roles, as International Co-Director of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health — NIGH World. In 2004, she joined several Nightingale scholars and related activisits to co-found NIGH — from Florence Nightingale’s legacy — to raise public awareness for health by empowering and engaging women — especially nurses and midwives — to advocate for the pressing global health needs of our time. Currently, she serves on the development team of NIGH’s global online outreach and is collaborating with a growing grassroots-to-global team of NIGH Board and Advisors to widen and strengthen participation in NIGH, worldwide. In this role, she represents NIGH at the United Nations in New York City as a UN DPI NGO Representative — focused on increasing awareness about health-related UN Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) and the emerging UN 'Sustainable Development Goals' (2015-2030).
She is Chair of NIGH’s global awareness campaign for ‘Daring, Caring & Sharing to Save Mothers’ Lives’ and Editor-in-Chief of NIGH’s online global portal that received 2.1 million hits, from 146 nations, across 2013. Dr. Beck has traveled to Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the South Pacific and across the United States and Canada for related discussions, meetings, workshops, conferences and keynote presentations. Dr. Beck’s presentations and workshops — focused on global cross-cultural understanding, leadership, communications and media skills — have been featured in China and India, Europe and Africa, the South Pacific and South America, Canada and the US, including for seven national conferences [2003 to 2011] of the American Holistic Nurses Association [AHNA] and — for NIGH World — through AHNA-based ANCC Credentialing — has provided CEs at independent workshops based in New York City and the Seattle, Washington region.
She has been a keynote speaker at major health, nursing and nursing student conferences across the world. Collaborating with the World Health Organization (WHO) she has recently produced a video entitled “At the Heart of It All: Nurses & Midwives for Universal Health Coverage.” In 2008, she also co-produced a video with WHO, entitled “Nurses & Midwives: Now More Than Ever for a Healthy World,” now featured online in 8 language versions.
As co-author of Florence Nightingale Today: Healing, Leadership, Global Action (2005) and numerous related articles and book chapters, Dr. Beck has contributed new scholarship on Nightingale's extensive international work, recommending how Nightingale's legacy can further inform and strengthen 21st century nursing practice and global citizenship.
Patricia Eckardt, PhD, RN - Associate Professor Stony Brook Medicine School of Nursing, Dr. Eckardt has demonstrated expertise as a quantitative methodologist, program evaluator, and clinician in corporate and academic medical center settings. A clinician for over thirty years, she holds a PhD in Educational Psychology, Quantitative Methodology. She is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, trained in LEAN, which contributes to her success in programmatic and process evaluation.
UN DPI NGO ADVISORS
Raissa Lynn G. Sanchez, BSN, RN, is serving NIGH as a consultant and mentor to NIGH’s first team of UN-DPI NGO Representatives based in New York City. This mentorship arises from her own official role to support the Global Action of Sigma Theta Tau, as their first-appointed ‘Youth Representative to the United Nations.’ This role includes attending Department of Public Information – Non-Governmental Organization (DPI-NGO) briefings and assisting in the dissemination information related to UN activities. In the April 2012 issue of Careful Nursing News, Raissa Lynn's article, "Nurses at the UN," was published.
Her own clinical nursing career has begun with her role as an Emergency Department RN at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center — a Level II Trauma Center in Paterson, New Jersey. She is currently a Cardiothoracic ICU nurse at the New York Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from William Paterson University in May 2011. Prior to graduating, Raissa Lynn was inducted into the Iota Alpha Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, International Honor Society of Nursing. Raissa Lynn’s peers and colleagues — within the Honor Society of Nursing — have fostered and supported her growth as a leader into the role of Vice-President of the Iota Alpha Chapter.
Though the seed of interest for global health was planted as a child, it didn’t sprout for Raissa Lynn until early 2011. Then, she traveled to her first medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic as a nursing student with Dr. Joanna Hofmann and the Foundation for Peace. Raissa Lynn's volunteerism and leadership was published in community newsletters, including Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine, and WPU Magazine. She remains heavily involved in the planning of yearly medical missions to the Dominican Republic as a mission leader by way of fundraising and facilitating opportunities for nursing students to refine their assessment skills.
Timothy F. Shi, BSN, RN, works at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on the Leukemia and Lymphoma Unit. He has also held the position of corresponding secretary on the E-Board of the Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) for the last two years, where he also holds the position of STTI's United Nations DPI NGO Youth Representative. In this capacity, he has attended workshops on Global Women’s Health, and on CTAUN — the Conference on Teaching at the UN. Tim also collaborated with NIGH to develop a workshop titled “Global Health Nurses & The United Nations: Education Practice & Advocacy” — convened in New York City in April, 2014. The purpose of this workshop was to help education nurses and nursing students on the importance of having a nursing voice in the global community — especially now with the development of the sustainable developmental goals.
Tim is also currently the President and a founding member of the recently formed New York City Chapter of the American Association for Men in Nursing, a group created to support men in nursing within the New York City area.
GLOBAL BRIEFING WEBMASTER
Darren Panicali, BSN, is a graduate of the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, where he recently received his bachelor's degree in nursing with an honors designation from the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. Post-licensure, he will begin practice as a registered nurse at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
Early on in his undergraduate career, Darren served as a health educator with the non-profit Peer Health Exchange and program intern with the "I Have A Dream" Foundation. Working to deliver education to underrepresented youth, he saw how leadership and education have the power to drastically change life trajectories. Inspired to promote these values, Darren went on to join the boards of his school and state chapters of the National Student Nurses Association, where he respectively served as President and Community Health Director. He has worked diligently to promote the interests of his fellow nursing students and the greater community, and he aspires to take his influence to the next level as a full-fledged nurse. After volunteering in rural medical clinics in Guatemala, Darren began to adopt a more global vision for health promotion, which has led to his collaboration with NIGH.
In the spring of 2012, Darren was named a Revson Scholar by the Charles H. Revson Foundation for academic excellence, public service and community action, and upon graduation from Hunter-Bellevue, the dean granted him the Excellence in School Leadership Award. A strong believer in nurses’ potential in the global sphere, Darren looks forward to working further with NIGH in the future.