About

Josephine Ensign is a professor of nursing at the University of Washington (UW) School of Nursing in Seattle, Washington, where she teaches health policy, public health, and health humanities. She is an adjunct professor at the UW School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. Her scholarship focuses on health and social inequities for people marginalized by poverty and homelessness. Her essays have appeared in Front Porch Journal, Pulse, Silk Road, The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Electric Literature, The Examined Life Journal, Oberlin Alumni Magazine, and the Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine. She is an alumna of Hedgebrook, Centrum, The Community of Writers, Mesa Refuge, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Ensign’s medical memoir, Catching Homelessness: A Nurse’s Story of Falling Through the Safety Net, was named the American Journal of Nursing 2017 Book of the Year for creative works. Her second book, Soul Stories: Voices from the Margins, was published in July 2018 by the University of California Medical Humanities Press.  Ensign’s third book, Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City, was published in August 2021 by Johns Hopkins University Press. It was named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. The paperback, Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle was published in February 2023 by the University of Washington Press. Her next book, Way Home: Journeys Through Homelessness, will be published in 2024 by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Ensign received a BA (Biology and Religion) from Oberlin College, her masters in primary care nursing from the Medical College of Virginia, and her doctorate in public health from the Johns Hopkins University  Ensign has worked as a nurse and family nurse practitioner for the past forty years, providing primary health care to homeless adolescents, families, and adults.

Here is a link to her current CV:

Personal Note:

• The views expressed on my blog are my own and do not represent those of my current employer, the University of Washington.
• All materials on this website are copyrighted and can only be used with proper attribution.