Monina Hernandez

Monina Hernandez is a global nurse-leader, infection control specialist, university lecturer, and author.

Monina is a clinical nurse specialist (CNS) for infection prevention and control involved in the management of Covid-19 at Auckland’s Managed Isolation and Quarantine Facilities, one of the four health pillars of New Zealand’s Covid-19 pandemic response. She is a lecturer and doctoral candidate at Massey University. Her doctoral research focuses on Filipino nurses’ personal experience with work-related fatigue in New Zealand acute care settings. Her research interests include infection prevention and control, nursing and patient education, workforce planning, migrant people’s health, socio-cultural determinants of health and digital/information technology applied to health. She has multiple publications, awards and have consistently presented research in international conferences.

Monina is the first Filipino to sit at the Nursing Council of New Zealand, the regulatory authority responsible for registration of nurses in New Zealand and first Filipino to be elected as director of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, the lead nurses’ organisation representing 52,000+ health staff in New Zealand. Globally, she has been elected to the Leadership Succession Committee of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honour Society of Nursing (STTI). STTI is a global community of nursing leaders and scholars with more than 135,000 members from 90 countries. She has been selected as one of the 2021 Top Diverse Board-Ready Directors by the Superdiversity Institute and the Ministry for Ethnic Communities and is a finalist for the Emerging Governance Leader Award by the Women on Boards, Governance New Zealand in 2019.