Meet our director of operations & advocacy, Emma Nelson!
Emma Nelson is the Director of Operations & Advocacy at the Zorya Foundation. As a real-world expert at connecting people to resources, Emma is a champion for ensuring that the generosity of supporters of the Zorya Foundation is impactful and executed with diligence. Emma is thrilled to join the Zorya Foundation to support and create opportunities for the healthcare community she has been dedicated to for over a decade.
Throughout her career, Emma has been a vocal, passionate patient and public health advocate. She views her role at the Zorya Foundation as a continuation of this work, utilizing her well-honed advocacy skills to advance opportunities for women to lead in the healthcare sector.
Emma’s passion extends to her time outside of work, as well. She has volunteered for numerous community organizations with causes related to poverty alleviation, survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence, and environmental justice.
Her clinical and public health work have focused on addressing social determinants of health that impact access to care and social services and mitigating health disparities among historically underserved and marginalized populations. Through this work, she cultivated strong connections and collaborative working relationships with many hospitals and healthcare systems, public health agencies, nonprofit and community-based organizations, and state and federal funders and policymakers.
Emma holds degrees in Social Welfare & Justice and Political Science from Marquette University. She began her career at the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, providing culturally sensitive, trauma-informed care to patients living with HIV. It is in this role that Emma found her niche. HIV/AIDS became the focus of her professional life, striving to understand the unique challenges of those living with and/or impacted by HIV/AIDS, and looking for opportunities to raise awareness, and fight stigma, ignorance, and indifference.
Emma continued this mission in her next role as a Linkage to Care Specialist in the Infectious Disease Clinic at the Froedtert Hospital & the Medical College of Wisconsin. She was among a group of professionals who piloted and contributed to the development of practice standards and protocols for the “Linkage to Care” initiative, a HRSA “Special Project of National Significance.” In this role, Emma provided intensive case management services, care coordination, health education, and individually tailored patient navigation to priority HIV+ populations to improve health outcomes and retention in HIV care.
Emma also serves on the Board of Directors for the Brady East STD (BESTD) Clinic in Milwaukee. Her work on the board supports the clinic’s mission of providing high quality sexual health services in an affirming environment. She contributes to strategic planning, development of clinic policies and procedures, implementation of quality measures for HIV testing & counseling, and works to expand outreach and access to disproportionately impacted populations. She also volunteers time to the BESTD Clinic as a counselor and HIV tester.
Emma values civic engagement and has volunteered as an election official since she was old enough to vote. She contributes time to voter outreach and engagement efforts and political action groups. She makes efforts to stay informed and is a self-admitted news and politics junkie.
In her free time, Emma finds solace in nature. She has an appreciation for the great outdoors and enjoys hiking, kayaking, fishing, site-seeing, and spending time on Lake Michigan. She appreciates opportunities to visit and spend time with family in Iowa and Chicago and is a “cool” aunt to 12 delightful nieces and nephews. Emma is a proud cat mom to 3 spoiled kitties and resides in Milwaukee, WI.