Diane Santa Maria, DrPH, MSN, RN, ACRN, PHNA-BC, FSAHM, FAAN, is Dean and a Professor in the Department of Research at Cizik School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston). She holds the Jane and Robert Cizik Distinguished Chair and Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair in Nursing Education Leadership. She is a former Visiting Professor at the University of California San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. She is a member of the National Institutes of Health’s Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council, and she is the Director of the Developmental Core and Co-Director of its Substance Use Scientific Working Group at the Texas Development Center for AIDS Research (Texas D-CFAR). She has served as principal investigator on more than $7 million in NIH grants for studies among youth experiencing homelessness that address HIV and substance use prevention, including a current project testing a mobile health intervention aimed at HIV prevention among youth experiencing homelessness.

Among her many honors, Santa Maria received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2025 and was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society’s International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in 2022. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.