Linda McNamara

Linda McNamara is a registered nurse whose career has spanned healthcare, global manufacturing, and academia. She is also a person living with systemic lupus, a serious chronic illness. Linda has strongly represented the patient's perspective on numerous committees, including the National Institutes of Health Director's Council of Public Representatives (COPR). She also served on the National Multicultural Outreach Initiative for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and on an advisory board for Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI}. She is a former director of the Joseph F. Sullivan Center, a nurse-managed health center at Clemson University, and a former group personnel manager for Michelin North America. Her personal philosophy is summed up in the title of the book she co-authored with Karen Kemper, PhD, MSPH: "If You Have to Wear an Ugly Dress, Learn to Accessorize (Guidance, Inspiration, and Hope for Women with Lupus, Scleroderma, and Other Autoimmune Illnesses). Their book presents positive life management strategies as "accessories" that create happy and productive lives despite the "ugly dresses" of autoimmune and other chronic illnesses. Linda's new book Pearls published 2023 is a collection of poems and prose.