A critical care nurse by training, Mary G. Carey, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN, is a highly respected researcher, educator, and mentor whose work has made significant contributions to the understanding of ECG monitoring to help detect cardiac arrhythmias and myocardial ischemia and infarction, and on the ECG's use in predicting cardiac events and sudden cardiac death. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, she has improved the detection of myocardial ischemia in patients with and without heart disease.
As director of the Clinical Nursing Research Center at Strong Memorial Hospital, Carey also mentors, advises, and supports the scientific aspirations of nurses early in their careers. She is a guiding force in prompting nurses to partake in clinical research projects to improve the quality of care. She is also highly involved in the management and direction of the nursing discipline and nursing faculty. She currently serves on numerous committees at the university, national and international levels. She provides peer review for journals and is a mentor in the American Nurses’ Association Mentorship Program and chairs the Young Investigator Competition for the International Society for Computerized ECG. At the University of Rochester, her membership on the Board of Trustees Health Affairs Committee, Faculty Senate, Commission on Women and Gender Equity in Academia, and the University Academic Affairs Committee speaks to her respected standing among her peers. A prolific publisher, Carey has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed and scholarly articles.
Carey has earned numerous honors in her 30-year career, including being selected to the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame (2022), and named Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (2014), Nurse of the Year, Education and Research by the March of Dimes (2012), and Dean’s Excellence in Research Award (2008) by the University at Buffalo.
Carey's extensive doctoral training with her mentor, Barbara J. Drew, RN, PhD, FAAN, a pioneer in electrocardiography, not only shaped her career as a scientist, but also enhanced her ability to mentor doctoral students. Prior to joining the University of Rochester School of Nursing, Carey founded the Cardiovascular Research Lab at the University at Buffalo (UB). She graduated from UB in 1990 with a BS in nursing and earned a master’s in critical care nursing with a minor in Education from the University of California, San Francisco in 1993. She earned her PhD from UCSF in physiological nursing in 2001.