Mary Brennan

Mary M. Brennan, AGACNP-BC, ANP, CNS, DNP, FAANP, is the program director of the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program and a clinical associate professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. In her clinical practice, Brennan specializes in the provision of advanced practice nursing care for hospitalized patients with acute, critical, and chronic cardiovascular illnesses. She has developed an innovative, problem-based curriculum, using evidence-based practice, to cultivate the art and science of clinical decision-making for adult patients with acute, critical, and chronic illnesses. As an educator, Brennan is interested in cultivating nurse practitioners' critical thinking and decision-making. As a DNP and an expert in quality improvement initiatives, Brennan teaches in the DNP Program and serves as a faculty mentor for a number of DNP students.

Brennan has received several curricular development challenge grants to design a virtual hospital called "Acute Care General Hospital," providing students with multiple opportunities to practice the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of patients. Brennan has integrated a series of progressive simulations throughout the AGACNP Program, and has presented her work nationally and internationally on rapid-response simulations at the National Organization of Faculty Conference and the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning Conference. She serves on NONPF's simulation committee. In collaboration with the Silver School of Social Work and the Long Island College of Pharmacy, Brennan is integrating interprofessional simulations throughout the AGACNP Program. 

Brennan has also led an initiative in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, to develop a culture of safety initiative designed to improve outcomes for patients with cardiac disease. Currently, she is collaborating with a team from Xiangya Hospital, Changsha, Hunan Province, China, to develop a culture of safety assessment in three different hospitals in Sierra Leone. She is the lead author of a systematic review team, part of the Cochrane Oral Health Group, investigating the effectiveness of whitening toothpastes.

In recognition of her exemplary teaching and learning approaches in nursing education, Brennan received the inaugural Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2018.

Brennan earned her DNP from Case Western Reserve University and MS from Boston College. Her DNP project was conducted in Accra, Ghana, where she taught nurses the principles of pediatric resuscitation to improve the care of infants and children treated in the emergency room.