Background

Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine, PhD, RN is a health humanities nurse scientist, disability justice scholar-activist, and assistant professor in the College of Nursing at University of South Carolina. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) in the Department of Disability and Human Development. Prior to this, she earned her PhD in Nursing and certificate in Disability Ethics at UIC where her dissertation explored the use of spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism and disability justice. 

Dr. Jamal-Eddine is a 2026 Johns Hopkins Nursing Science Incubator in Social Determinants of Health Solutions Fellow. Previously, she was an inaugural 2025-26 Hispanic Serving Research University Postdoctoral Fellow and 2024-25 San Francisco State University Paul K. Longmore Institute Emerge Disability Justice Fellow. Dr. Jamal-Eddine is an emerging national disability leader shaping the disciplines of nursing and critical disability studies through high impact publications, invited presentations, research collaborations, and community-based scholar-artist-activism.

Teaching

Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s teaching philosophy is informed by her intersecting identities, lived experience, activist values, as well as her formal research on pedagogical praxis rooted in interdisciplinary disability justice frameworks, Freirean critical pedagogy, radical belongingness, and accessibility as praxis of equity. In 2023, she was recognized by University of Illinois Chicago with a Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award.

Research

Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s research seeks to dismantle ableism in nursing education and practice through decolonial pedagogic strategies, community-based interventions, and policy transformations rooted in critical disability studies theory and the lived experiences of multiply marginalized disabled people. Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s research simultaneously theorizes on a political model of disability which explores how systems of oppression—including white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism—disproportionately manufacture disability, both domestically and transnationally. One facet of this includes investigating how unjust and unsustainable nursing workforce labor conditions manufacture disability and contribute to nurse attrition from the profession.

Dissemination

Dr. Jamal-Eddine has been invited to speak for faculty, staff, and students across countless institutions including Stanford, Emory, Purdue, Georgetown, University of Maryland, Ohio State University, University of Michigan, American Nurses Association, and DNPs of Color, amongst others. She has also presented her research nationally and internationally at conferences such as American Studies Association, American Public Health Association, Health Humanities Consortium, and the International Nurse Education Conference.

Dr. Jamal-Eddine has published in high impact journals including Nurse Education in Practice, International Journal of Nursing Studies, JAMA Network Open, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Professional Nursing, Journal of Nursing Education, and Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, to name a few. She is also committed to diverse methods of community-based dissemination such as translating critical theory into accessible spoken word poetry.  

Professional Service

• Founder / Disabled Nurse National Solidarity Collective (2025-Present)
• Board of Directors / National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (2022-Present)
• National League for Nursing (NLN) Strategic Action Group on "Disability Access, Retention, and Curriculum in Schools of Nursing," aiding in the co-creation of their inaugural vision statement and toolkit (2025-Present)

Research Studies (selected)

• Using Photovoice to Explore the Experiences of Nursing Students with Disabilities. Role: Co-Investigator (2026-Present)
• UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy ($10,000). Exploring intimate partner violence among LGBTQ+ Arab Americans; A phenomenologically grounded qualitative research study. Role: Co-Investigator (2025-Present)
• Arizona State University Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics Seed Funding Grant ($5,000). Crip critique: A spoken word poem and performance on lived pasts and imagined futures of work. A collaboration with Corvalis Daytime Drop-In Center. Role: Principal Investigator (2024)
• UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy Dissertation ($1,150) + UIC’s Tom and Sherri Mendelson Nursing Student Dissertation Research ($1,000). Exploring spoken word poetry as affective pedagogy in nursing: A qualitative descriptive study on disability justice education. Role: Principal Investigator (2022-23)

Publications (selected)

Jamal-Eddine, S. A. (2025). Ableism experienced by disabled undergraduate nursing students in the United States: A qualitative metasynthesis. Nurse Education in Practice, 87, 104480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104480 

Jamal-Eddine, S. A., Carichner, T., Morrow, L., Cameron, V., Patrick, J., Aul, K., Jackson, B., & Meeks, L. (2025). Advancing disability inclusion in nursing education: A call for evidence-based action and systemic change. Journal of Professional Nursing, 59, A1-A3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2025.05.009 

Jamal-Eddine, S.A. & Abboud, S. (2025). Spoken word poetry in nursing education: A concept analysis. Social Science & Medicine, 379(1982). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118172 

Jackson, B., Cameron, V., Hodgens, T., Jamal-Eddine, S.A., Marsala-Cervasio, K., Smeltz, R. B., Carichner, T., Jones, K., Morrow, L., Bandell, J., Pawloski, K., Valdez, A., & Meeks, L. (2025). Prevalence of disability and accommodation use in US Bachelor’s Degree Nursing programs. JAMA Network Open. 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.61038 

Jamal-Eddine, S., Savage, T., & Gill, C. (2024). Assets, not burdens: Disabled students in nursing education. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 154, 104775–104775. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2024.104775