Patricia Flatley Brennan, R.N., Ph.D. Closed Now

Dr. Patricia Flatley Brennan is a trailblazing leader in biomedical informatics, nursing informatics, and health data systems. She is best known as the Director of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a role she has held since August 2016, making her the first nurse and the first woman to lead the world’s largest biomedical library.

With a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a strong background in nursing practice, Dr. Brennan’s career bridges the gap between patient care, health IT, and large-scale health data science. Before leading NLM, she was the Lillian L. Moehlman Bascom Professor of Nursing and Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she conducted pioneering research on patient engagement, personal health informatics, and home health care technologies.

At the National Library of Medicine, Dr. Brennan oversees billions of biomedical and genomic records, advancing global access to medical knowledge through platforms such as PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, and GenBank. She has championed the use of big data, artificial intelligence, and informatics innovations to enhance both clinical research and patient care.

Her research contributions include the design of computer networks for home care support, tools for patient self-management of chronic disease, and new informatics approaches to improve public health and biomedical discovery.

Dr. Brennan is widely recognized for her visionary leadership in transforming health data systems into tools that improve care delivery and empower patients. She is a Fellow of both the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) and the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), underscoring her dual impact on technology and nursing.