Marla E. Salmon is Professor of Nursing and Global Health at the University of Washington. She is former dean of both the University of Washington and Emory University Schools of Nursing, and has worked in academic, policy, and practice settings in both nursing and public health. Her career has focused on health workforce policy and capacity building in both global and US contexts, working with governments, international agencies and other health–related entities. Her current work relates to social finance and enterprise in the health sector, particularly with respect to opportunities for investment in nursing and midwifery as means for strengthening health systems, empowering women, and providing decent work and career possibilities for poor and marginalized people. She is also engaged in work focusing on women in governance roles.

Salmon has served in leadership and advisory roles, including as US government chief nursing officer in the role of Director of the Division of Nursing, US Department of Health and Human Services; Chair of the Global Advisory Group for Nursing and Midwifery of the World Health Organization. Her advisory roles include serving as member of the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform (Clinton Administration), the US Delegation to the World Health Assembly, the National Advisory Committee for the Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health, and the Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing’s Future. She has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the Commonwealth Health Minister’s Secretariat for Nursing and Midwifery, and CARICOM. She has also held leadership roles at Emory University Schools of Nursing, where she served as dean of nursing, professor of nursing and public (global) health, and founded and directed the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing and the Global Government Chief Nursing Officer’s Network.