Our Faculty
About Us
Nursing Faculty 2022-2023
Maria Cho, PhD, RN, FNP-BC
Professor, Assistant Director
maria.cho@csueastbay.edu
Dr. Maria Cho is a Professor and Assistant Director of the nursing program at California State University, East Bay. She earned a bachelor's in nursing in South Korea, a master's degree from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) with an oncology clinical nurse specialist, and a Ph.D. from UCSF. She also earned a postmaster's family nurse practitioner degree from San Francisco State University. Dr. Cho has published and presented her research regionally, nationally, and internationally. While undertaking cancer nursing research at UCSF School of Nursing for six years, Dr. Cho taught a symptom management seminar course and found her passion for teaching. She started teaching at CSUEB in 2012, and she teaches Foundations of Professional Nursing, Nursing Intervention, Nursing Care of Adults I, Health Assessment, and Nursing Research to undergraduate nursing students. Her areas of research interest include symptom management, palliative care nursing, and nursing education. She has been an oncology nurse for more than 15 years. She is an active member of various professional nursing organizations and currently practicing palliative care.
Roberta Durham, PhD, RN
Professor Emeritus
roberta.durham@csueastbay.edu
Dr. Durham has over 25 years of active clinical practice as a labor and delivery nurse, she has coauthored an undergraduate maternity nursing textbook in its fourth edition (Durham, Chapman & Miller, 2023), and has taught nursing for over thirty years. As a Professor Emeritus of Nursing at California State University, East Bay she conducts research, nationally and internationally, in maternity care services, in maternal outcomes, and has extensive published work. She was recently appointed as a Fulbright Scholar for 2022-2023 in Trinidad and Tobago and was previously a Fulbright Specialist at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan. For over a decade she ran active global health program in rural Panama as a founding member of Hands for Global Health.
Monika Eckfield, PhD, MSN, RN, PHN
Associate Professor, Department Chair
monika.eckfield@csueastbay.edu
Dr. Eckfield an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Department of Nursing at California State University, East Bay. She earned her Bachelors of Science degree in Psychology with a minor in Chemistry from University of California, San Diego, a Master of Science in Nursing from California State University, San Francisco, and a PhD in Geropsychological Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. Her nursing practice and research has focused on managing chronic health issues and maximizing quality of life in older adults with physical and mental health issues. She has particular expertise in hoarding disorder (HD) and has worked with health and social service agencies to implement evidence-based strategies that promote the health and safety of older adults with HD. In her academic role, Dr. Eckfield has demonstrated an unflagging commitment to increasing diversity and inclusivity in the nursing profession. In 2015 she co-founded the Diversity in Nursing Task Force at Cal State East Bay whose goals included taking steps to ensure a full range of voices and life perspectives are a part of the nursing student body. She takes great joy from encouraging students and colleagues reach their full potential and thrive in their careers.
Susan Forsyth, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor, Maternity Nursing Team Lead
susan.forsyth@csueastbay.edu
Dr. Susan Forsyth has been a registered nurse since 1993. She was a proud bedside nurse for 21 years, with 13 of those years in high-risk labor and delivery, and has spent the last eight in academia. Dr. Forsyth started grad school because she realized that the problems she saw in the hospital could not be fixed by the hospital, but rather they were systemic: rooted in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the schools we attend and the life chances made available, or not made available, to each person because of the circumstances of their birth. Dr. Forsyth is passionate about bringing health equity, social and environmental justice into the classroom, and creating learning spaces where success is the norm and students feel safe and heard. Her primary research focused on tobacco control as a social justice issue. Worldwide, tobacco use is still the biggest cause of preventable death and is increasingly marketed to marginalized people. Published widely, Dr. Forsyth examined how and why tobacco imagery is inserted into popular video games and how adolescents and young adults interact with this type of imagery. Since Dr. Forsyth has started teaching at Cal State East Bay, she has turned her attention to exploring how nursing education, especially public nursing education, can be transformed into a welcoming place that strongly supports historically excluded people who want to become nurses.
Kimberly Kim, PhD, RN
Professor
kimberly.kim@csueastbay.edu
Dr. Kim has been a Professor in the Department of Nursing since 2001. Dr. Kim teaches adult health, health promotion, EBP research, and professional role development in nursing. Her research focuses on various fields involving quality and safety education for nurses (QSEN), clinical competency of senior nursing students and novice nurses, health outcomes of underserved older adults in the community, and symptom management and sleep studies in post-surgical patients. Recently, Dr. Kim evaluated the QSEN competency skills of novice nurses that participated in the transition program and found that newly licensed nurses perceived informatics as the most developed competency and patient-centered care as the least developed competency among six categories of QSEN competency skills. Dr. Kim aims to improve nursing values and standards by working closely with Quality Matter online and blended education. Dr. Kim is a Quality Matter (QM) certified reviewer and her preceptorship synthesis course has been QM certified.
Barbara Maerz, MSN, RN
Lecturer, Clinical Simulation Lab Program Coordinator
barbara.maerz@csueastbay.edu
Barbara Maerz is a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Nursing at California State University Eastbay. She earned her BSN from University of Maryland and an MSN in International Cross-Cultural Community Health with a teaching minor from UCSF School of Nursing. Presently, as a simulation educator, she is the Clinical Simulation Lab Program Coordinator. Ms. Maerz opened the simulation labs at the Concord and Hayward campuses, has overseen the development and integration of simulation learning experiences in all clinical nursing courses. She was one of the lead faculty chosen to integrate Quality and Safety in Nursing Education (QSEN) into the CSUEB nursing program. Global Health is an important interest, and as an RN and Educator she has supported the CSUEB nursing student’s exposure and participation in providing health care, health screening and education during international medical brigades in Panama.
Sahar Nouredini, PhD, RN, CNS
Associate Professor, Community Health Nursing Team Lead,
Post-licensure Nursing Program Coordinator
sahar.nouredini@csueastbay.edu
Marissa H. Rafael, MSN, RN, CMSRN, DNPc
Assistant Professor, Medical-Surgical II Team Lead
marissa.rafael@csueastbay.edu
Marissa H. Rafael, MSN, RN, CMSRN, DNPc is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nursing at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB). She has over 14 years of clinical nursing experience in adult inpatient care, from surgical/orthopedic/trauma to medical-surgical and oncology nursing. She currently practices as a staff registered nurse on a high-acuity inpatient oncology unit in Oakland, CA. Inspired by the mentorship she received as a nursing student and a new nurse, Marissa pursued growth in the field of nursing education. She teaches medical-surgical nursing practica in many Bay Area hospitals, nursing skills in the laboratory, and has been a faculty liaison for students completing their final preceptorship in the prelicensure nursing program. She has also taught advanced health assessment in the postlicensure nursing program. She is a course lead for Medical-Surgical Nursing II in the program. Marissa is a proud alum of the BSN program at CSUEB, and received an honor as one of CSUEB 40 alumni under 40 in 2021. She is currently enrolled in a doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) program with an emphasis in educational leadership.
Julie Severet, MSN, RN
Lecturer
julie.severet@csueastbay.edu
Julie Severet, MSN, RN is a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Nursing at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB). She earned a BS in Biological Sciences from CSU Hayward and an MSN with a focus in education from San Francisco State University. Her clinical specialty is in Medical-Surgical Nursing. Over the past 25 plus years at CSUEB, she has taught a number of different courses. Her main courses are Pathophysiology, Pharmacology and Medical/Surgical clinical. She received the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Lecturer in 2019.
Kate Shade, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor
kate.shade@csueastbay.edu
Dr. Shade’s clinical expertise is in the areas of child and adolescent psychiatric/mental health and community/public health nursing. Dr. Shade has conducted a program of research working with youth involved in the justice system. She used qualitative methods to investigate adolescent father identify development among justice-involved young men. She also conducted several mixed methods evaluations, including an evaluation of a cognitive-behavioral intervention titled Thinking for a Change and a family-based intervention titled Functional Family Therapy. Dr. Shade is interested in curriculum development and teaching/learning practices related to clinical judgement in nursing.
Canyon Steinzig, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor, Medical-Surgical I Team Lead
canyon.steinzig@csueastbay.edu
Alicia Swartz, PhD, MSN, PHP, RN
Assistant Professor, Pediatric Nursing Team Lead
alicia.swartz@csueastbay.edu
Dr. Alicia Swartz is a pre-tenure assistant professor of pediatric nursing at California State University East Bay (CSUEB), a clinical researcher at the University of California San Francisco, and a practicing Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in Oakland, CA. She was recently awarded the title: “Changemaker in Family Planning” for her work exploring the training of nurses in sexual and reproductive health. Her current work has evolved to include the diversity, equity, and inclusion in nursing training programs. She is a founder and Co-Chair of the Dismantling Racism in Nursing Education Task Force at CSUEB, and has provided numerous training sessions for nursing faculty on the topic of Anti-Racism pedagogy and its application in Nursing.
Claire Valderama-Wallace, PhD, MPH, MSN, RN
Associate Professor, MSN Coordinator,
Community Engagement Course Lead
claire.valderama-wallace@csueastbay.edu
Claire Valderama-Wallace (she/siya) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nursing at California State University, East Bay, where she teaches Community Health Nursing, Community Engagement, and Epidemiology and Social Inequities. She is the MSN Program Coordinator, co-chairs the department's Dismantling Racism in Nursing Education Task Force, and convenes the university's Indigenous Acknowledgement Collective. She serves on the National Advisory Council of the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE) and the editorial board of the journal Teaching and Learning in Nursing. A vision for internationalist anti-imperialist and anti-racist futures informs her efforts in teaching, scholarship, and organizing.