Samantha Auerbach, MSN, ANP-C, WHNP-BC, Presidential Scholar

• Hometown: Worcester, MA
• Favorite Self-Care Activities: Cooking, puzzles and hiking
• Undergraduate Education: Bachelor of Arts, Neuroscience, Skidmore College; BSN/MSN, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, Direct-Entry Nurse Practitioner Program
• Current Program: PhD

I chose UB School of Nursing because of its reputation for scholarship and for its ties to the community. 

I am interested in promoting health equity by studying disparities in health outcomes that are related to social and structural causes, especially within reproductive health and women's health in general. My clinical experience exposed me to the vastly different experiences of health and disease that exist in our own community. I felt ill-equipped and constrained to address this within my clinical practice and I seek to discover the root causes of these complex social problems in order to empower patients and their providers with tools to address these issues.

I hope to remain in academia to continue to research ways in which patient outcomes are impacted and can be improved.

I hope my pursuits will help improve disparate health outcomes, empower patients and providers, and equip decision-makers with evidence to help push policy towards more equitable care. 

Without this scholarship I would be unable to commit myself to my PhD studies and would very likely not be here today. With this scholarship, I can contribute to furthering nursing science and improving health outcomes for vulnerable populations.