Gloria Donnelly is a longstanding proponent of self-care and resilience building strategies beginning with her book, Coping with Stress: RN’s Survival Sourcebook Medical Economics Press, 1983 and most recently, with Dr. R. Wicks, Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice, Oxford University Press, 2021. As the recently retired Editor in Chief of the refereed journal, Holistic Nursing Practice, she has influenced the practice of holistic self-care modalities to nurture mind, body, and spirit and she is a scholar and advocate of the use of cutting-edge digital technologies to improve health. She has extensive experience in the design of in-person and online nursing and health professions programs. Most recently she designed and taught an online course in digital health to engineer and health professions students.

Dr. Donnelly earned a BSN from Villanova University, an MSN from the University of Pennsylvania with an emphasis in psychiatric nursing, and a Ph.D. in Human Development from Bryn Mawr College. She is author of seven books and the winner of two American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year awards. Dr. Donnelly was the founding Dean of Nursing at La Salle University in Philadelphia and the founding Dean and Professor Emerita, College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. Currently, Dr. Donnelly is working with Bayada Education to design innovative approaches to nursing education.
True to her own quest for personal resilience, Dr. Donnelly is a Stand-Up Comedian who has used her comedic talents to raise funds to assist nursing and health professions’ students and to manage her own stress. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the Philadelphia College of Physicians, the oldest medical society in the United States.