Chelsea Starkweather
2012 UCLA Graduate Scholarship Recipient
University of California Los Angeles | School of Nursing
Chelsea Starkweather graduated from the UCLA School of Nursing’s Masters Entry Clinical Nurse (MECN) program in June 2012. The program awards a Masters of Science in Nursing (MSN) to pre-licensure students who already have obtained a Bachelor’s degree in another field and provides an emphasis in the Clinical Nurse Leader role. As a nursing student, Chelsea was very involved in student government, serving as the Co-President of the Graduate Students in Nursing Association (GSNA) from 20111-2012, as well as the first year representative to GSNA for her MECN class from 2010-2011. Chelsea also traveled to Uganda in December of 2011 with twelve other UCLA nursing students to provide health care through mobile clinics to rural communities with no running water or electricity, let alone access to health care.
Chelsea realized her passion for health as an undergraduate student at UC Santa Barbara where she earned a BA in Sociology. She was heavily involved in peer health education as a student and subsequently worked as a Health Educator for UCSB after graduation before pursuing her Masters of Public Health (MSH) degree at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. There she concentrated in Women’s and Reproductive Health and Health Disparities. At this time, she realized that in order to make the most impact in human health, she would need to pursue the clinical side as well and easily choose nursing as a career path.
Chelsea hopes to work as a labor and delivery nurse at the bedside for many years to come, with the possibility of further graduate studies in nursing. Her interests in nursing include: women’s health, health promotion, health disparities, global health and research. She hopes to improve the lives of women and children here in the United States and abroad both at the individual and population level.
