Josephine is a professor of nursing and adjunct professor in the School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She teaches public health, health policy, and health humanities. She holds a doctorate in international public health from Johns Hopkins University. She has an undergraduate degree from Oberlin College in biology and religion (medical ethics) and a master’s degree in primary care nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been a nurse for over 30 years. Her scholarship, advocacy, and nursing practice focus on health and social inequities for people marginalized by poverty and homelessness, and she is the author of several books on homelessness.