Karen Daley, PhD, RN, FAAN

A resident of Mashpee, MA, Daley spent more than 25 years in clinical practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She practiced for more than 22 years in the BWH emergency department until January of 1999 when she left due to a needlestick injury that resulted in her infection with both HIV and hepatitis C. Since that time, she has been actively engaged on state, national and international levels, traveling to more than 30 US states as well as Europe, Australia and Asia in her ongoing campaign to educate nurses, students, health care administrators and legislators on the importance 

of needlestick injury prevention. In recognition of the integral role she played in the passage of federal legislation to update the 1991 OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard, Daley was among those invited to the Oval Office to witness President Clinton sign the “Needlestick Safety Prevention Act” into law on November 6, 2000. 

She served from 2010 to 2014 as the president of the American Nurses Association, the nation’s largest nursing organization representing the interests of the nation’s 3.5 million registered nurses. She is a past president of ANA Massachusetts and the 

Massachusetts Center for Nursing and has served on the boards of ANA, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and the ANA-PAC. She is a current member of the Board of Trustees of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the International Safety Center and the Barnstable Land Trust and has an appointment as adjunct faculty at Case Western Reserve University.

During her four-year tenure as ANA president, Daley led and served as spokesperson for the organization, which represented the interests of 3.1M registered nurses and included three subsidiaries with a $50M budget. During that time, she spearheaded a major organizational transformation, initiating the most substantive changes made to ANA in over three decades that have resulted in significant overall growth for the organization. 

She has been honored for her excellence in practice and outstanding leadership, including being recognized as a living nurse legend by ANA-Massachusetts. In 2006, she was inducted as a Fellow into the American Academy of Nursing in recognition of her sharps injury prevention advocacy work. In 2011, Daley was listed among Modern Healthcare’s “100 Most Influential People in Health Care” and, in 2013, was selected by 

Modern Healthcare as one of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare.” In 2015, in recognition of her global public health advocacy and leadership, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Rivier University in Nashua, New Hampshire and in 2017, received her second honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts.

Daley holds a diploma in nursing from Catherine Labouré School of Nursing, a bachelor’s of science in nursing from Curry College, a master’s in public health from Boston University School of Public Health, and master’s in science and PhD in nursing from Boston College.