Dr. Walton is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also an Oncology Certified Nurse working in inpatient Hematology/Oncology at the North Carolina Cancer Hospital. She earned her BS in Community Health Education and Spanish at the University of Maryland, her Masters Degree in Health Behavior and Health Education from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, an accelerated BSN at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a PhD in Nursing with an oncology cohort at the University of Utah. Dr. Walton is a Certified Health Education Specialist. Her research focus is on minimizing occupational exposures to carcinogens. Her dissertation work was informed by the combination of her educational preparation and over ten years of clinical experience caring for patients with acute leukemia. Her dissertation examining the pesticide protective behaviors of Latino migrant and seasonal farmworkers was supported by the American Cancer Society and a T32 Fellowship in Cancer, Aging and End of Life from the National Institutes of Nursing Research. Dr. Walton has also gained some advocacy experience around safe handling of hazardous drugs for healthcare workers at the local, state and national level and that work has informed the focus of her postdoctoral research examining antineoplastic drug exposure among nursing assistants working in the inpatient oncology setting.