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On Wednesday, the NANDA-I Board of Directors learned of the death of one of our founders, Kristine Moore Gebbie, DrPH, MN, BSN, RN, FNI, FAAN. In 1973, Kristine Gebbie and Mary Ann Lavin called the First National Conference on the Classification of Nursing Diagnoses (Gebbie & Lavin, 1975), which was held in St. Louis, MO. From there, the Association known as the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (now NANDA International) was born. In her message, her daughter, Eileen, recounted that her mother was pregnant with her at the first NANDA conference, and she subsequently returned to celebrate the 25th NANDA-I conference with Kris. She noted that she and her siblings “grew up in NANDA”.

Dr. Gebbie was an academic and public health official, most recently working as a professor at the Flinders University School of Nursing & Midwifery in Adelaide, Australia. She also served as a Professor of Nursing at Columbia School of Nursing, the Joan Hansen Grabe Dean of the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing at Hunter College, at City University of New York. She is probably best known for her work as the first White House AIDS Policy Coordinator (1993-1994), and as the Secretary of the Washington State Department of Health (1989–1993). Her work in disaster management and competency based education also brought her many accolades. She worked across multiple levels of governmental and health care agencies to ensure disaster readiness and emergency preparedness.

Dr. Gebbie was the recipient of recognitions from multiple organizations and associations, including the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the New York Academy of Medicine, Flinders University Australia, and she was in the inaugural class of NANDA-I Fellows. We had looked forward to welcoming Kris to Boston, MA for our 50th Anniversary conference in 2023. She will be greatly missed by her family, friends, and colleagues, and our thoughts go out especially to her children, Eileen, Anna, and Eric.