Each year the Massachusetts Adult Immunization Conference Planning committee selects the Adult Immunization
Champion Award winners based upon a nomination and review process looking for leadership, innovation,
collaboration, advocacy and initiative towards improving adult immunization rates. This year’s awardees are
Beverly Salate, RN, BSN and Ann Becker, RN, DNP.
Beverly Salate RN, BSN graduated from Fitchburg State and has been a registered nurse since 1981. Upon moving to West Boylston in 1988, Beverly began working at VNACare (formerly VNA of Central Mass) where she was a staff nurse, manager and currently the director of the VNA wellness program. She is also enrolled in a public health nursing program at Worcester State University. With over 1,400 employees at VNACare and close to 200 volunteers, Beverly was able to achieve an employee vaccination rate of 94% for the 2017 influenza season. Beverly is committed to her community: She has been a member of the West Boylston Board of health since 2008. She is also an Executive Member of PERP, representing the home care alliance of Massachusetts in relation to emergency planning in region two. She worked with project SHARRP at UMass Lowell on syringe safety in home care. Beverly is a current member of West Boylston Health Coalition working to combat the opioid crisis. She is a member of religious education board at Our Lady of God Counsel and also a lector. She was even a Merit Badge counselor for Troop 151 (emergency planning and first aid), and former treasurer of the troop.
Ann Becker RN, DNP is the University of Massachusetts Amherst Public Health and Infection Control Nurse. She has worked at University Health Services in this role since 2002. Ann is the director of the UMass Amherst Medical Reserve Corps (UMass MRC) a unit she co-founded in 2005 which embeds the MRC into the curriculum of the undergraduate nursing programs. Each year, undergraduate nursing students join Ann in the campus influenza vaccination campaign administering thousands of vaccines to students, faculty, and staff. This past year due to an outbreak of meningitis on campus, the UMass MRC assisted University Health Services in administering approximately 15,000 doses of meningitis B and influenza vaccinations. In addition, Ann chairs the UMass Amherst Tobacco Free Policy Committee and manages the Tobacco Ambassador program, runs numerous walk-in STI/HIV screening clinics annually and engages in active and passive communicable disease surveillance and response on campus. Ann received her Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Simmons College in 1984 and her Doctorate of Nursing Practice with a concentration in public health nurse leadership in 2017. In addition to clinical work Ann teaches Community and Public Health nursing to undergraduate and graduate students at UMass Amherst.