New Fellow Commemorative Program - American Academy of Nursing

Botswana
Sheila Dinotshe Tlou, PhD, RN
Sheila Tlou is a Member of Parliament and former Minister of Health of Botswana. She is a Professor of
Nursing at the University of Botswana and former Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and
Midwifery Development in Primary Health Care.
The consistent theme in her research is incorporation of gender issues in HIV/AIDS and Sexual and
Reproductive Health and Rights. As Minister of Health, she led a successful HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment,
care, and support program whose achievements include a decrease in mother to child transmission of
HIV from 40% in 2004 to 2% in 2008.
A strategic leader, policy maker, advocate, and broker of global relations, Dr. Tlou has been involved in the
international arena as Chair of the African Union Ministers of Health and the Global Fund Board representative
for Eastern and Southern Africa. She is a faculty member in the New ICN Global Nursing Leadership
Institute. She is the United Nations Eminent Person for Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa, and
has received several awards, including the 2008 AAN Presidential Award, the 2007 Woman Leading Change Award from the World
YWCA, and the 2003 Florence Nightingale Award from the International Red Cross Society. She is a media commentator on several
Global TV channels.
Dr. Tlou received her BSN from Dillard University, her MSN from Catholic University of America, her MEd from Columbia University,
and her PhD from University of Illinois at Chicago.
Canada
I N T E R N A T I O N A L F E L L O W S
Judith Shamian, PhD, DSci, LLD, RN
Judith Shamian is the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Victorian Order of Nurses Canada
(VON) and President Elect of the Canadian Nurses Association. She is also a Professor at the Lawrence S.
Bloomfield, Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto, Canada.
As President and CEO of VON Canada, Judith has guided this 112-year-old organization through a time of
great transition and transformation to bring it under one organizational umbrella. This reorganized structure
will allow VON to maintain its place as Canada’s largest, not-for-profit, charitable home and community
care provider through its next century of existence. In this role, Dr. Shamian is championing the home
and community care agenda in Canada, as well as working to strengthen partnerships between formal
health care providers, families and friends who provide care, volunteers, and community organizations in
order to recognize and support the entire spectrum of care.
She is the recipient of the Ross Award for Nursing Leadership, the Golden Jubilee Medal by the Governor
General of Canada, and the Centennial Award from the Canadian Nurses Association which recognizes nursing leadership over
the past 100 years. Judith is also the recipient of two honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, and
Ryerson University, Toronto.
Dr. Shamian obtained her PhD from Case Western Reserve, Cleveland, Ohio, her Master’s in Public Health from New York University,
and her Baccalaureate in Community Nursing from Concordia University in Montreal.
12