Nicole Martinez Santana, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC
Education and training
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) & Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)- Columbia University
Bachelors of Science in Biology- The City College of New York
Professional interests
Mentoring/Teaching
Full-spectrum family medicine
Social determinants of health
Mental health
Why I love my job
I am passionate about addressing barriers/social determinants of health within the underserved to be able to optimize their health & wellness. I have a strong sense of satisfaction and self-efficacy in seeing individuals feel like they matter especially when they need it the most.
Professional certifications or affiliations
American Nurses Association
ANA-New York
Professional Experience and Accomplishments
I am a recent graduate nurse practitioner from Columbia University. During my time at Columbia, I was honored to have been selected to attend the National Hispanic Medical Association Annual Conference in 2022 and present my research addressing the impact of racial disparities and discrimination during the peripartum experience in African-American and Hispanic women across the United States. At my time at Columbia, I was also grateful to have received the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program in 2020. This scholarship alleviated the financial burden and allowed me to accomplish my goal of becoming a family nurse practitioner to provide primary care health services in underserved communities.
Prior to Columbia, I earned my Bachelor of Science in biology at the City College of New York. While pursuing my degree, I had been fortunate to work with Dr. Anita Devineni in a neurobiology research at Jerome L. Greene Center in 2018. There I gained insight and firsthand experience on the theoretical application to tangible. The study of stimulating different bitter neurons in drosophila flies and observing their behaviors actually contributes to understanding neuronal development in us. With the collaboration of Dr. Anita Devineni & other authors, we were able to publish our research paper in 2023 at two biomedical & life sciences literature databases: eLife & Pubmed.