News

July 2009
Brennan Selected to Lead Living Environments Laboratory
at Wisconsin Institute for Discovery

Patricia Flatley Brennan, the Lillian S. Moehlman-Bascom Professor of Nursing at the UW–Madison School of Nursing and chair of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering, has been selected to lead the Health Technology Design in the Living Environments Laboratory at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Dr. Brennan is one of only five scientists at UW–Madison chosen to lead research themes for the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery, a new institute focusing on biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology.

Patricia Flatley Brennan, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI is one of five scientists selected to lead research at the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery. (Photo: Bob Rashid)The Health Technology Design in the Living Environments Laboratory will accelerate the development and deployment of personal care and therapeutic technologies to support individuals and families in the detection, recognition, and management of health problems.

Brennan joined the UW–Madison School of Nursing faculty in 1996. She concurrently holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering on the UW–Madison campus. Her research is in the area of nursing informatics–the integration of nursing science with information technology to manage an individual's health care.

Dr. Brennan is currently National Program Director of a $10 million project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Project HealthDesign is a national program designed to support health and information technology pioneers to create a new generation of personal health records (PHR) systems.

For more information about the research themes chosen to occupy the new research institute, read:
Five big ideas to fill out Wisconsin Institute for Discovery portfolio