Mary Lynn, PhD

Professor and Assistant Director, Quality and Training, UNC-CH Office of Human Research Ethics

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Nursing
Campus Box #7460
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7460

Mary Lynn began her nursing career at Orange Memorial Hospital (now Orlando Regional Medical Center) School of Nursing in Orlando, Florida, graduating the same year Disneyworld opened.

After working as a staff and charge nurse in pediatric intensive care at Orange Memorial Hospital, she attended the University of Florida where she became a Gator fan and earned the BSN and MN degrees from the College of Nursing, and the PhD in Psychometrics and Evaluation from the College of Education.  She has served on the faculties of the University of Mississippi and the University of Arizona prior to coming to Chapel Hill in 1991.  Her research interests are in the areas of measuring quality of care, the expectations patients have for care, work satisfaction, instrument development and testing, and the employment of doctorally-prepared nurses.  She completed an NIH/NINR-funded study of outcomes of nursing care in the acute care setting in 1999 and another on the outcomes of care in the home setting (2008).  She and Marilyn Oermann are currently leading a RWJF project looking at deans’ and directors’ hiring practices and intentions for doctorally-prepared faculty.  She has been to Disneyworld 15 times and is definitely a Tar Heel fan.