Maria Amaya, PhD, has leadership experience in health care teaching, research, and practice extending back 1979. As University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) professor of nursing from 1999 to 2023, she demonstrated wide-ranging clinical, administrative, and academic skills. Her efforts brought in around $25 million in external funding for research she undertook as lead investigator or co-investigator. Maria Alvarez Amaya, PhD, ultimately directed the nursing research program, working in tandem with the director's office to plan research involving nursing researchers and select undergraduate students.
Dr. Amaya’s experience includes working as a nurse practitioner at UTEP, where she focused on providing primary care, including OB/GYN care, to women students. Among her responsibilities was caring for Hispanic women of low income through a Kellogg-funded community clinic operated jointly by UTEP and the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center. Dr. Amaya has also delivered obstetric prenatal and post-partum care through the El Paso Department of Health.
Dr. Amaya’s published works include a paper on “Advances in Materials Physics and Chemistry” for a special 2020 issue of the Journal of the American Nurses Association – New York on rare earth materials. She has excelled in fostering interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Texas at El Paso that integrate the efforts of geology and environmental engineering and science PhD students.