Ashley Waddell is the Director of Government Affairs and Educational Programs for the Organization of Nurse Leaders - MA, RI, CT, NH, & VT.

She is recognized nationally for contributions to nurses' health policy participation, influence, and the unintended consequences of over-regulating nursing practice. Dr. Waddell created a replicable process for collecting and synthesizing nurse leaders' policy perspectives and has provided strategic leadership to leverage nurses' deep clinical and operational knowledge, as well as communication and relationship-building skills, to make it comfortable and efficient to impact timely policy decisions.

Dr. Waddell's scholarship addresses nurse leader policy influence and nurses' policy participation, as well as policy content in nursing education. She developed the first valid and reliable nursing conceptual model and theory-based instrument to assess nurses' health policy participation. She serves on the System Board Quality of Care Committee for Tufts Medicine, and she teaches health policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Dr. Waddell holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts Boston, MS from Northeastern University and BSN from the University of New Hampshire. She was a post-doctoral Senior Fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and a Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar.