Dr. Daniel Jackson Smith Joins Faculty as Inaugural Weingarten Endowed Assistant Professor

Daniel Jackson Smith, PhD, APRN, CNE, an adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioner, has joined the Villanova University Fitzpatrick College of Nursing faculty in January 2022 as its inaugural Weingarten Endowed Assistant Professor. He brings a research passion for studying the effects of climate change on the health outcomes of disenfranchised populations and how to build climate resilience and adaptation skills in communities and health systems. His current program of research focuses on developing interventions to mitigate the impacts of climate change on disenfranchised communities, for instance, environmental stressors in migrant farmworkers and the impact of increasing global temperatures on population health.

Dr. Smith earned a BA in biology and Spanish (with a public health minor), a BSN, MS, Post-Graduate Certificate, and PhD in Nursing from Emory University in Atlanta. While a PhD student, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholar, Cohort 5. His dissertation focused on studying the link between occupational exposures (specifically, high heat conditions) and the development of kidney disease in migrant worker communities throughout the Southeastern United States.    

Dr. Smith served as a clinical instructor and research associate at Emory University and as a registered nurse at the Clarkston Community Health Center in Clarkston, Ga.  He participated as a contract nurse for a COVID-19 Sero-prevalence Investigation in Georgia as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

He has received numerous awards and belongs to several distinguished organizations including: Symposium of Distinction Award by the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science; received the Fuld Service-Learning Fellowship at Emory University, is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, a member of Sigma Delta Pi National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society, is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International, is an Apple Teacher, a Certified Nurse Educator, and he earned a Spanish-English Translation Certificate. Finally, Dr. Smith was also a trainee in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Digital Innovators Program.

Dr. Smith has numerous publications, and he reviews manuscripts for the Journal of Emergency Nursing and the American Journal of Public Health. He served the community of Atlanta as a registered nurse with the Boat People SOS, Inc., an international Vietnamese-American nonprofit community-based organization; served on the Board of Directors at Caminar Latino, Atlanta; and currently serves as Co-Chair of the Global Nurses’ Climate Change Committee for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. He looks forward to continuing his clinical practice with migrant workers in the greater Philadelphia region.

Outside of academia, Dr. Smith enjoys cooking, biking, and binge-watching TV shows. He has a Cocker Spaniel, Koda, and a voluptuous, orange tabby cat, Kiara.