Brenda L. Cleary
Brenda L. Cleary, PhD, RN, FAAN
Director, Center to Champion Nursing in America
Dr. Cleary is a national expert in health care workforce research and policy and for fourteen years prior to joining AARP, she held the position of Executive Director of the North Carolina Center for Nursing, a state funded agency committed to assuring nursing resources to meet the healthcare needs of the citizens of North Carolina. Dr. Cleary also served as project director for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Colleagues in Caring) funded initiative, the NC Nurse Workforce Planning Model, as a delegate to the American Nurses Association and an elected member of the ANA Nominating Committee as well as a Magnet appraiser for the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She served as a gubernatorial appointee on the North Carolina Institute of Medicine and as an Adjunct Senior Fellow of the Duke University Center for Aging and Human Development, created a state level Health Policy Fellowship for nursing leaders and also convened and chaired the National Steering Committee of the Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers. She continues service on the American Academy of Nursing Workforce Commission, the Professional and Technical Advisory Committee for the Joint Commission’s Long Term Care Accreditation Process and as an AARP representative on the Eldercare Workforce Alliance. She is also a member of the 2002 cohort of RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows.
Formerly, Dr. Cleary was Regional Dean and Professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing. While at TTUHSC, she received the Excellence in Teaching Award and the President’s Academic Achievement Award. While at Texas Tech, she maintained a faculty practice as a Clinical Specialist in Geriatric Nursing in long term care and served as a co-investigator on a federally funded research project on management of dementia. She currently serves on the National Advisory Committees of the RWJF-funded New Graduate RN Project, the Oregon Consortium on Nursing Education evaluation project, and the Western Governors University MAP-RN initiative. Dr. Cleary has multiple presentations and publications to her credit and received three AJN Book of the Year Awards.
Dr. Cleary received a BSN and MSN from Indiana University and a PhD in Nursing from The University of Texas at Austin and was recognized as a distinguished alumna by both schools of nursing.
Email Brenda
(202) 434-3911