School of Nursing alumna gives TED Talk at Harvard

11/14/16  Portland, Ore.

In November, Sana Goldberg, a recent OHSU School of Nursing Accelerated Bachelor of Science alumna, gave a TED Talk at Harvard University.

In the talk titled, “What if You Became a Nurse?” Goldberg spoke about why she decided to pursue a nursing career after completing her education at a small liberal arts college.

Goldberg grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Her mother was a nurse and her father was a civil rights attorney for the city. As an undergraduate at Reed College, Goldberg studied behavioral neuroscience and clinical psychology with Dr. Paul Currie and Dr. Kris Anderson. She also assisted in Dr. Bonnie Nagel's Developmental Brain Imaging lab at OHSU for several years.

In 2013, Goldberg was exposed to nursing when she worked at a local memory care facility. At the center, she started a canine therapy program, a family support group, and taught a brain education series where the average student was 80-100 years old. “I was eager to find a way to combine a desire for human connection with a passion for science,” Goldberg said. “Nursing was and continues to be the perfect vessel for this!”
Sana Goldberg
In August of 2016, Goldberg graduated from the AccBacc program at OHSU’s School of Nursing. Goldberg is a natural speaker who has presented in Switzerland, at her nursing graduation ceremony and most recently, at a TED Talk. She said that she is most passionate speaking about self-care and hopes to draw minds across various disciplines to the field of nursing.

Goldberg thanked School of Nursing clinical instructor, Kristen Beires-Jones, for being a strong source of support during her time as a nursing student. “She gave me the courage and inspiration to give [the TED Talk],” Goldberg said. “Much of its content draws from experiences in her public health course working with refugees. I am continually grateful for her mentorship.” Goldberg is currently writing a book and will be a Psychiatric Emergency Nurse at the Unity Center for Behavioral Health. The Unity Center opens in January 2017 and is the result of a collaborative effort between Adventist Health, Kaiser Permanente, Legacy Health and OHSU. Recently Goldberg launched Nightingale, a website, and movement which aims to connect nurses to their communities through advocacy and social justice.

Further reading

Research with Dr. Paul Currie and Dr. Kris Anderson in behavioral neuroscience and clinical psychology- and focusing on adolescent brain development and the magic of synaptic pruning can be found in The European Journal of Neuroscience, Appetite, and Neuropharmacology.

Golderberg's undergraduate research was published and presented in Zurich, Switzerland.


About the Author

Andy Ngo, Communications Assistant and student worker for the School of Nursing

** article first appeared on the OHSU internal SoN News blog