Diane M. Becker

Becker graduated from Monroe-Woodbury High School in 1961.^[1] Becker graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1964 with a R.N. Diploma in Nursing.^[1][2]

For 17 years, Becker worked as a nursing director in intensive care units in London, Boston, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.^[1] She earned a B.S. (1978), M.P.H. (1979), and Sc.D. (1984) in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.^[3] Her doctoral advisor was David M. Levine. Becker's dissertation was titled Risk Behaviors and Risk Factors in Siblings of People with Early Coronary Heart Disease.^[2]

Levine recruited Becker in 1984, Becker to join the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.^[3][4] She researched cardiovascular disease prevention and specialized in coronary disease risk factors.^[3][4] In 1987, Becker became the first nurse to receive an academic appointment in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.^[4] She worked in the department of medicine division of general internal medicine and held a joint appointment in the Bloomberg School department of health policy and management.^[4]

Becker partnered with pastors from 250 churches in East Baltimore to create the nonprofit Heart, Body, and Soul, Inc. aimed at improving health outcomes among urban African American populations.^[3] In 1995, Becker became a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow.^[3] Becker retired in 2018 and was named a professor emerita of medicine.^[1]

Becker was born March 27, 1943, in Warwick, New York, to Lucile Swartwout, a nurse, and John Smith Demarest a bar and inn manager in Greenwood Lake, New York.^[1][3] She met Lewis C. Becker, her future husband, while she was a nursing student and he was studying medicine.^[1] They married on November 7, 1964.^[2] They had a daughter.^[1] Becker and her husband were seasonal residents of Martha's Vineyard, having bought a home in Lambert's Cove in 1990.^[3]

Becker died November 17, 2021, of metastatic breast cancer in North Roland Park, Baltimore.^[1][3] An Anglican funeral mass was held at St. Thomas the Apostle Hollywood.^[1]