About Leslie

I am a formally educated urban planner and a rising cardiovascular critical care nurse whose work lives at the intersection of physiology, place, and justice. I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Public and Urban Affairs from Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies (CAUS) in 2007, with a minor in Political Science—training that shaped how I understand systems, power, and the built environment as forces that profoundly influence human outcomes.

Years later, I came to nursing through a systems lens, drawn to critical care as the point where long-standing social, environmental, and biological stressors converge. As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse entering cardiovascular critical care, I care for failing hearts while naming the systems that strain them—recognizing critical illness as the culmination of cumulative exposure to inequity, access, and environment over time.

I am also a mom. Wife. And lifelong student.

Through Vaso & Vibes, I explore nursing as both a technical and moral practice, grounded in relational systems thinking. My work bridges nursing theory, urban planning ideology, and bedside practice to examine how environments—ICUs, hospitals, neighborhoods, and policies—shape who becomes critically ill and how healing unfolds. I am particularly interested in social determinants of health, systems-based practice, and the role of nurses as relational infrastructure within complex adaptive healthcare systems. My educational goals now include gaining a doctorate-level clinical foundation for leveling up my practice within critical care and within academia.

Vaso & vibes represents the convergence of Leslie the professional and Leslie experiencing a multidimensional human experience. That being said, there is likely a little comedy, possibly a little poop (or was it chocolate?), and whole lot of lessons to be learned..