Roberta Waite, Ed.D., is dean of Georgetown University's School of Nursing. Waite is a highly regarded nurse leader whose career fuses education, practice, research, and community through innovative and transformative strategies. A fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the Academy of Nursing Education, she completed her tenure as professor of nursing at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where she served as the school’s associate dean of Community-Centered Health & Wellness and Academic Integration. 

Recognized as a national model of innovative care by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Waite has animated her 33-year career on behavioral health, structural influencers of health, and racial justice. A psychiatric-mental health clinical nurse specialist, Waite provided transformational and visionary leadership at 11th Street—a federally-qualified comprehensive health service center in Philadelphia. During her tenure, Waite served as director of psychiatric nursing at Hahnemann University Hospital, where she created opportunities for student formation in the areas of early intervention, health equity, prevention, and wellness.

After being named an inaugural Macy Faculty Scholar in 2011, Waite created the Macy Undergraduate Leadership Fellows Program—a program that reflects her commitment to intentional interdisciplinary for undergraduate students in the health, nursing, and public health fields. She served on Drexel’s Antiracism Task Force, directing the Listen, Learn, and Lead subcommittee and was on the Racial and Communal Trauma Prevention Action leadership team. She also serves on the National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing, the Education Work Group, and the American Nurses Association on the Health Equity Advisory Group for National Quality Forum (NQF) MAP (Measure Application Partnership). 

Waite’s ethos align with Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit values. She is a member of Catholic Health Ministries and serves as board director for the Family Process Institute, the Independence Blue Cross Foundation, the Advisory Group for COACH (Collaborative Opportunities to Advance Community Health), and the Advancing Health Equity National Advisory Committee. She has been primary investigator on numerous grants, and her scholarship and has appeared in over 70 refereed publications. She completed her bachelor’s and doctorate degrees at Widener University and her master’s at University of Pennsylvania. Following her doctoral work, she held a T32 post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Disparities, where she focused on vulnerable women, children, and families.