Rayna Rogowsky

Rayna Rogowsky is a registered nurse in the UK and New York (USA). Rayna earned a BA in Women’s and Gender Studies & History (Middlebury College, USA), a BSc Nursing (New York University, USA) and a MSc Health Psychology (University of St Andrews, UK). She has been a Lecturer (Teaching and Scholarship) in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Dundee since 2020 and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has held varied health and social care roles working with diverse populations including perinatal families and people affected by gender-based violence.

As a nursing educator she is passionate about enhancing wellbeing and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in the curriculum and beyond. She organises a monthly seminar series called Diversity Points, which explores EDI in health sciences and higher education with students, staff, and practitioners that is online and open to all. She was selected as a Council of Deans of Health (CoDH) Fellow in 2022 and is currently involved with CoDH activities as an EDI Strategic Policy Group member, Student Leadership Programme coach, and podcast contributor. Rayna is currently Athena SWAN Co-Lead for the School of Health Sciences. Rayna is part of the Child Nursing team and teaches across pre-registration and post-qualifying modules. 

She has led scholarly activity aiming to develop a shared understanding of EDI in the curriculum among staff and students involved in nursing education and enhance practice for reporting and responding to racism. She has been successful in obtaining small funding awards to support her scholarship and to build upon her MSc dissertation, which used a theoretical framework to explore the healthcare needs and service experiences of university students with a long-term illness, medical condition, or disability. As a Research Assistant at the University of St Andrews she was involved with investigating methods of connection from primary care to community-based physical activity using evidence synthesis and qualitative methods. Rayna has contributed to projects affiliated with the Mother, Infant, and Child Health Research Group (MIRU) and the Healthy Active Ageing Team (HAAT) that relate to her broad research interests in wellbeing, health behaviours, health promotion, and inequalities. She is interested in applying her education interests in wellbeing and EDI to research perinatal mental health among nurses and midwives.