Biography:

Ismalia De Sousa (she/her) is a Doctoral Student and a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia, and a Research Assistant in the Vancouver Stroke Program at Vancouver General Hospital/University of British Columbia. Her doctoral research will be exploring lived experiences of young women, LGBTQIA+ and visible minorities with a stroke to demonstrate inequities and provide recommendations for healthcare systems. She also has an interest in amplifying the voices and increasing the visibility and representation of Black, Indigenous and other people of colour within the nursing workforce to reflect the individuals and communities nurses care for and ensure that multi-layered decision-making in health, academia, research, and policy-making is person-centred. Ismalia earned her Bachelor’s Degree (with honours) in Nursing from Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Lisboa (Portugal) and holds a Master’s Degree in Advanced Practice Neuroscience Care from King’s College London (United Kingdom). She worked as a Registered Nurse and later as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Stroke in the Comprehensive Stroke Centre at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (London, UK) for 10 years, collaborating also with not-for-profit stroke organizations. She was a committee member of the Royal College of Nursing Neuroscience Forum (2015 – 2019), represented stroke nursing in the National Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party and served as co-chair of the National Senior Nurse Thrombectomy group (2018 – 2019). Ismalia is a board member of the British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing (United Kingdom) and led the development of the first UK Career Framework for stroke nurses, a project funded by the Royal College of Nursing. She is a board member of the Stroke Recovery Association of BC and one of the co-founders of the Coalition of African, Caribbean and Black Nurses in BC.