Deb is critical care nurse by training with a BSN, MBA and a Master’s in Theology with

a concentration in bioethics. After working in healthcare and the private sector for 30+

years, she now concentrates in public, non-profit organizations, and philanthropy. She

works in areas where she can combine her passion for healthcare, business and faith.

 

Deb currently is a Delegate and Special Advisor to the Ambassador on Human

Trafficking for the Order of Malta’s Mission to the United Nations, where she focuses on

human trafficking and the global refugee crisis. She recently founded Global Strategic

Operatives for the Eradication of Human Trafficking, (GSO), which conducts trainings to

healthcare systems on how to identify victims and take appropriate actions. The goal of

the GSO healthcare pilot is to create and submit a ‘universal policy’ to the WHO for

consideration of implementing a worldwide human trafficking policy for healthcare

providers. In addition, Deb works with Homeland Security and law enforcement to

provide human trafficking educational presentations to airline personnel, government

employees, corporations and universities. She supports an anti-human trafficking

educational exhibit in Haiti which rotates regularly around the country. Deb participated

on a Human Trafficking Symposium at the Vatican last spring, and the Human

Trafficking Summit at the White House in January 2020.

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Deb founded Nurses With Global Impact, Inc. in 2016 as a resource for nurses and to

recognize those doing extraordinary work and making a global impact in healthcare. She

hosts International Nurses Day at the United Nations annually where a select group of

nurses are chosen from around the world to be honored and awarded.

Deb has always had a passion for healthcare missions: Haiti (20+ years), Philippines,

Dominican Republic and Bosnia Herzogovina, where she was a member of a Crisis

Intervention Team with National Organization for Victim’s Assistance (NOVA) of

Washington, DC, to work with women and girls who survived rape camps. She was a

member of the Federal Disaster Medical Team that was deployed to NYC on 9/11/01.

Deb is active on a number of non-profit boards: two term Board of Councilor with the

Order of Malta, American Association, and continues as a member of the Medical

Committee for the annual Lourdes Pilgrimage.

 

Deb also sits on the boards of Malteser

International Americas, RAD-AID, Int’l, World Youth Alliance, the Gold Foundation,

and the National Catholic Bioethics Center. She is a former member of the CRUDEM

Board for Hopital Sacre Coeur in Haiti for 8 years, chaired the Jerome Lejeune

Foundation USA, on the Board of Boston’s Healthcare for the Homeless Program for 5

years, and spent 4 years on the Board of the American Heart Association as Chair of

Public Advocacy.

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Deb was the Director of Respect Life Education for the Archdiocese of Boston for 8

years. She helped start-up Pure in Heart, a 501(C3) young adult ministry in Boston, Haiti,

Kenya, Ireland and UK.

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Deb was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in Boston. She is married to Steve

Rusckowski and they now reside in NYC.