SBU News: Early career nurse educator Clare Whitney named a Macy Faculty Scholar
Clare Whitney, PhD, MBE, RN, Assistant Professor in the Stony Brook University School of Nursing, has been selected as a 2025 Macy Faculty Scholar, a national program that identifies and develops early-career nursing and medicine educators to become more effective leaders.
Dr. Whitney is Stony Brook’s first Macy Faculty Scholar, and she is one of five educators nationwide to make up this distinguished class of 2025. Macy Scholars develop a project and have access to professional development programs, formal mentoring, and educational opportunities. The program begins on July 1.
Dr. Whitney’s Macy Faculty Scholars project is centered around the Alda Healthcare Experience for Nursing (AHE-N), an interprofessional communication skills training designed for nurses. She will work to develop, implement, and evaluate the AHE-N, which aims to advance sustainable solutions for burnout prevention while enhancing interprofessional collaboration for student nurses.
Her nursing research at Stony Brook is focused on reducing burnout and improving the well-being of healthcare professionals. She established an interdisciplinary research program that addresses pressing relational and ethical issues for the healthcare workforce.
“This is an exciting honor and a meaningful recognition of my passion for advancing nursing education,” says Dr. Whitney. “As I continue to grow in my career, this will allow me to collaborate with and receive mentorship from other educators and leaders, strengthening my ability to educate the next generation of nurses and hopefully make a lasting difference in the profession.”
“We are proud to have Dr. Whitney selected as a Macy Faculty Scholar,” says School of Nursing Dean Patricia Bruckenthal. “Given her expertise in bioethics and health communication science, she will no doubt make an impact on promoting collaboration among health professionals and preparing future nurse leaders to deliver ethical patient-centered care in our complex healthcare environment.”
At Stony Brook, Dr. Whitney is also an affiliated faculty member in the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics in the Renaissance School of Medicine.
“As an early career faculty member, Dr. Whitney has an impressive body of scholarship related to addressing relational and ethical issues among health professionals,” adds Dr. Holly J. Humphrey, President of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the organization that sponsors the program.