Catherine C. McDonald has been named the Dr. Hildegarde Reynolds Endowed Term Professor of Primary Care Nursing in Penn’s School of Nursing, effective immediately. 

Dr. McDonald is also an associate professor of nursing at Penn Nursing, vice-chair of the department of family and community health in Penn Nursing, and an associate professor of pediatric nursing at the Perelman School of Medicine. She is a member of the executive committee of the Penn Injury Science Center (PISC), a Centers for Disease Control (CDC)-funded Injury Control Research Center, and is co-director of the PISC Training Core, which helps oversee undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate training. Dr. McDonald is a nurse scientist, clinical expert, and an exceptional teacher.  

Dr. McDonald’s program of research aims to promote health and reduce injury in youth. She has a strong portfolio of research on adolescent injury prevention funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the CDC. She is currently the primary investigator on two NIH-funded R01s focused on teen driving and adolescent injury prevention and co-investigator on several injury-related research projects. Dr. McDonald’s research drives her teaching as well as her clinical work as a pediatric intensive care nurse and school nurse. She has been course director and seminar leader for several first-year courses, and a guest lecturer in numerous courses at Penn Nursing and across campus. She also has a training leadership role in the CHOP Leadership Education in Adolescent Health (LEAH) Program. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles on injury prevention related to children and adolescents on the topics of driving behaviors, motor vehicle crashes, child passenger safety, concussion, and community violence exposure.