Dr. Glenna Brewster is an Assistant Professor, tenure track, at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University and a Family Nurse Practitioner in the Integrated Memory Care Clinic. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a Bachelor and Masters of Science in Nursing, a Masters of Arts in Gerontology, and a Ph.D. in Nursing Science. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine in the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology. Her program of research aims to understand sleep disturbance experienced by persons living with cognitive impairment and their caregivers, develop behavioral interventions to address the identified sleep disturbance, and examine the impact of these sleep interventions on psychological, cognitive, and physiological outcomes.

Dr. Brewster has been funded by the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute of Nursing Research. She is currently funded by the Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory, the Alzheimer’s Association and the National Heart, Lunch and Blood Institute through her participation in the Programs to Increase Diversity in Behavioral and Sleep Medicine Research.

Dr. Brewster recently served on the Board of Directors for the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence and as a co-convener for the Nursing Care of Older Adults research interest group for the Gerontological Society of America.
She has published her research in many multidisciplinary journals including the Journal of Aging and Health, and Geriatric Nursing. Dr. Brewster has also given numerous presentations about her work at local, regional, and international conferences including the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, Southern Nursing Research Society, SLEEP, and Gerontological Society of America.

• Brewster, G.S., Riegel, B., & Gehrman, P. (2018). Insomnia and the Older Adult. Sleep Medicine Clinics, 13(1), 13-19. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsmc.2017.09.002
• Gehrman, P., Gooneratne, N.S., Brewster, G.S., Richards, K. & Karlawish, J. (2018). Impact of Alzheimer disease patients’ sleep disturbances on their caregivers. Geriatric Nursing, 39(1), 60-65. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2017.06.003
• Brewster, G. S., Epps, F., Dye, C. E., Hepburn, K., Higgins, M. K., & Parker, M. L. (2019). The Effect of the “Great Village” on Psychological Outcomes, Burden, and Mastery in African American Caregivers of Persons Living With Dementia. Journal of Applied Gerontology. doi:10.1177/0733464819874574
• Brewster, G.S., Bonds, K., McLennon, S., Moss, K.O., Epps, F. & Palan Lopez, R. (2020, Online publication). Missing the Mark: The Complexity of African American Dementia Family Caregiving. Journal of Family Nursing.
• Epps, F., Alexander, K., Brewster, G., Parker, L., Chester, M., Tomlinson, A., Adkins, A., Zingg, S., Thornton, J. (2020, online). Promoting Dementia Awareness in African American Faith Communities. Public Health Nursing. doi.org/10.1111/phn.12759

Dr. Brewster’s research focuses on the identification of factors affecting cognitive health among older adults and family caregivers of persons with dementia with an emphasis on sleep disturbances. Her long-term plan is to develop and test multicomponent interventions based on the factors identified so as to improve the lives of the older adults and caregivers.

• 2019 Fellow Program to Increase Diversity in Behavioral Medicine & Sleep Disorders Research, New York University School of Medicine, NY
• 2018 Fellow Butler Williams Scholar Program,
• Bethesda, MD
• 2017 Fellow National Institute of Nursing Research Summer Genetics Institute, Bethesda, MD
• 2017 Selected Participant American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigator Research Forum, Bethesda, MD
• 2016 Douglas Holmes Emerging Scholar Paper Award, Gerontological Society of America
• 2009 King O’Neal Scholar University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

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Media Coverage

"The real faces of careers in aging with Glenna Brewster.” Available online https://gsaonaging.podbean.com/e/the-real-faces-of-careers-in-aging-with-glenna-brewster?fbclid=IwAR0y4llQD5NVZy9inqxzNq6TtfdRcZnwQsXtZ_ztpjNcbOUWcSKKrNSOXsA

"With Knowledge Comes Strength” on Shifting Perspectives podcast. (Available online https://www.yolanderobinson.com/episode11.html

Local Doctor Offers Valuable Opportunity for Help and Intervention with Alzheimer’s Disease” (June, 2020). Available online https://alzga.blog/2020/06/07/local-doctor-offers-valuable-opportunity-for-help-and-intervention-with-alzheimers-disease/