Vaunette Fay, PhD, RN, FNP, GNP-BC is a Professor of Clinical Nursing at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston and has more than 30 years of experience in nursing education and care of older adult patients and their families. She am a certified Family Nurse Practitioner (1975-2015) and a Gerontological Nurse Practitioner (1989-present).  In 1993, I became head of the Division of Gerontology at the School of Nursing and in 1997 was appointed as Associate Director for Education at the UTHealth Center on Aging and is an active member of the UT Consortium on Aging.  I have had faculty practice positions as a GNP with Harris Health-formally Harris County Hospital District, Settegast Clinic and was the Director of Wellness services for The Amazing Place, a day center for older adults with memory problems 2005-2014.  Dr. Fay currently serves on the Texas Council on Alzheimer ’s disease and Related Disorders and the board of Holly Hall Retirement Community in Houston.

The focus of her scholarship is the impact of co-morbidity on physical functioning in older adults, dementia care, and competency of nurses working in long term care. The focus of Dr. Fay’s academic career has been development of nurse practitioner programs, Gerontological Nurse Practitioner and Adult/Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, and interdisciplinary education.  She served as nursing coordinator for the Houston site of a Hartford Interdisciplinary team training grant and have had a number of HRSA, Division of Nursing educational grants that have focused on increasing the knowledge in geriatrics/gerontology of nursing faculty and practicing nurses in order to improve care for our older adults. Currently, Dr. Fay teaches in the Master’s Adult/Gerontology Primary Care NP program and in the DNP program and the Director of Continuing Education at Cizik School of Nursing, developing  programs for RNs, APRNs and nursing faculty.