Events

This Research Speaker Series will feature Rebecca Shasanmi Ellis, PhD, MPH, RN, FADLN, FAAN, an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing. Her talk is titled "The Colorline: Mitigating Impact of Moral Distress for Healthcare Workers and Patient Care and Safety Outcomes."

Rebecca Shasanmi Ellis, PhD, MPH, RN, FADLN, FAAN is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing and Director of the Ellis Lab. Her research focuses on clinical outcomes being inseparable from the design of team environments, organizational structures, and systems that either support or undermine the humans embedded within them. Her research investigates how suboptimal team design, fragmented workflows, and rigid environments concurrently drive health worker moral distress and inequitable patient outcomes. Dr. Ellis examines how structural racism and economic inequality trigger predictable cascades of harm across perinatal and mental health systems. Current interventions often fail because they target individuals, not the systemic architectures. She applies human factors principles to redesign these systems in communities globally and domestically. 

Dr. Ellis leads several research initiatives, including serving as Principal Investigator for MoM Care DC (NIH funded), workforce and global engagement programs, and Project Director for the rural focused HEARTT Project. She brings over 20 years of field-trained experience in public health research, community-based participatory action, and health systems operations. Dr. Ellis serves on the Georgetown University Medical Center Executive Faculty, the Advisory Board for the Center for Health Equity, and as Chairperson of the Public Health Nursing Section of the American Public Health Association. In recognition of her sustained leadership in advancing anti-racism in public health and nursing, she was inducted as a Distinguished Fellow into the Academy of Diversity Leaders in Nursing (2025). For her global and domestic health policy development, including work with WHO Nigeria (during Ebola), she was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (2026).

This virtual event is free and open to the public.