Cathy Quay
Associate Professor of Nursing and Department Chair/Program Director for the Department of Nursing
Department: Nursing
Email: cquay@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 278-4879
Brief Biography
Catherine Quay, EdD, MSN, RN, GERO-BC, CNE is a nursing educator, researcher, and leader currently serving as Department Chair and Program Director of Nursing at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, where she also holds the rank of Associate Professor. Her academic and professional career spans more than two decades, including faculty, leadership, and extensive clinical experience across diverse settings such as long-term care, home health, and acute care.
Dr. Quay’s research focuses on aging, empathy in nursing education, and innovative pedagogies such as virtual reality and interdisciplinary collaboration. She has been the principal investigator on multiple funded projects, including an NC AHEC Clinical Site Development Grant (2025) and a nationally recognized study on virtual reality’s impact on ageism and empathy among nursing students. Her work has been published in leading journals such as Nursing Education Perspectives and Nursing Science Quarterly.
Her scholarly contributions have been widely recognized, most notably as the inaugural recipient of the National League for Nursing’s Edmund J. Y. Pajarillo Health Informatics and Innovation Award in 2022.
Dr. Quay is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences and contributes to advancing nursing education through leadership roles in organizations such as the National League for Nursing and the National Consortium of Academic Nurse Educators.
News & Notes
Education
Teachers College, Columbia University, EdD, Nursing Education, 2024
Pace University, MSN, Family Nurse Practitioner, 2000
Orange County Community College, AAS, Registered Nursing, 1998
College at Geneseo, State University of New York, BS, Business Management, 1994
Grants Awarded
2026 NC AHEC, Clinical Site Development Grant ($19,312). Â鶹ÊÓƵ Clinical Site Development: Piedmont Health Services. (Primary Investigator) In-Progress
2025 NC AHEC, Clinical Site Development Grant ($14,285). Â鶹ÊÓƵ Clinical Site Development: Piedmont Health Services. (Primary Investigator) Completed.
2023 Eastern Nursing Research Society/NLN Doctoral Research Grant ($2,500). Effect of Virtual Reality on Empathy and Ageist Attitudes in Nursing Students. (Primary Investigator). Completed.
2023 VentureWell Course and Program Grant and Fellowship ($30,000). Creating AgeFriendly Innovations with a Focus on Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Interdisciplinary Collaboration Among Students. (Co-Primary Investigator). Completed.
2022 Drexel University, AgeWell Collaboratory Age Friendly Grant ($10,000). A Novel Community-based Participatory Design Side-by-Side Course with Older Asian Adults. (Co-Investigator). Completed.
2021 Drexel University, College of Nursing and Health Professions, Dean’s Innovation in Healthcare Education Grant ($5,000). Developing an Immersive Virtual Reality Simulation on Aging and Examining the Effect on Empathy: A Pilot Study. (Primary Investigator). Completed.
Publications
Quay, C., Dickinson, J. K., & O’Connell, K. (2025). Effect of virtual reality vs. narrative case study on empathy and ageist attitudes in prelicensure nursing students. Nursing Education Perspectives, (46)3, 155-160. DOI:
He, J. & Quay, C. (2025). Creating inclusive entrepreneurship in interdisciplinary pedagogy. In S. C. Santos, J. Moran, & S. A. Simmons (Eds.), Annals in Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy – 2025 (pp. 408-414). United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Quay, C., Kabigting, E.N. R., Wall, C. L., Farrell, R., Suzan, Z., Washington, S., Pajarillo, E. J. Y., Seibold-Simpson, S. M., & Bajwa, M. (2023). The academic nurse educator shortage: A qualitative study and a call for collaboration with professional nursing organizations. Journal of the American Nurses Association-New York, 3(1), 55-62.
Dickinson, J. K., Quay, C., & Dolen, E. (2023). Use of nursing theory to guide doctoral research: An exploratory study. Nursing Science Quarterly 36(4), 381–386.
Quay, C. & Ramakrishnan, A. (2023). Innovative use of virtual reality to facilitate empathy toward older adults in nursing education. Nursing Education Perspectives, 44(5), 300– 302.
Awards
2024 NLN Nursing Education Perspectives Journal Awards, Honorable Mention
2023 Sigma Theta Tau International, Nu Eta Chapter, Research Award
2023 NLN Nursing Education Research Conference, Doctoral Student Best Poster Award
2022 NLN Edmund J. Y. Pajarillo Health Informatics and Innovation Award
2022 Sigma Theta Tau, Nu Eta Chapter, Academic Scholarship