Marlaine Cappelli Smith is known for her work in metatheory, or the study of nursing theories and theoretical issues, research and theory development related to healing through touch therapies, and advancing Caring Science including the development of the middle range theory of Unitary Caring. She has studied, written about, and conducted research related to Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB), Parse’s Humanbecoming theory, Watson’s Theory of Transpersonal Caring, and Newman’s theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness, and has written many commentaries on issues related to nursing knowledge. Marlaine conducted five research studies examining the impact of touch therapies of massage, therapeutic touch, hand massage, and simple touch on pain, symptom distress, quality of life, sleep and other outcomes for persons in acute and long-term care settings. The last completed study, a multisite RCT, was funded by the NIH, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. She has been interested in transtheoretical work, that is looking across nursing theories for points of convergence. The middle range theory of Unitary Caring was developed while studying the literature on caring in nursing and analyzing this literature through the lens of the SUHB.

Marlaine has held academic appointments at Duquesne University, Penn State, LaRoche College, University of Colorado (CU) and Florida Atlantic University (FAU), including serving as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at both CU (2001-2006) and FAU (2006-2011), Dean at FAU (2011-2019) and the Director of the Anne Boykin Institute for the Advancement of Caring in Nursing. She retired from her faculty position at FAU as Professor and Helen K. Persson Eminent Scholar in August, 2021. Marlaine has published over 150 journal articles, columns, monographs, abstracts, and book chapters, and is editor, co-editor or associate editor of three editions of Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice, Caring in Nursing Classics, Philosophies and Practices of Emancipatory Nursing: Social Justice as Praxis, and Handbook for Caring Science: Expanding the Paradigm. Over the course of her career she taught 53 different courses, chaired 23 dissertations, and served on an additional 57 dissertation committees. She has significant experience developing curricula for BSN, MSN, DNP and PhD programs, and serves as a “thought leader” in developing Tool Kits for the newly developed AACN Essentials (2021).

Marlaine completed her BSN at Duquesne University, her MPH and MNEd at the University of Pittsburgh, and her PhD in Nursing Science at New York University. Honors include: Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, Honorary Scholar in the Global Academy of Holistic Nursing, Florida Nurses Association Hall of Fame, DAISY Award, Nurse of the Year – Palm Healthcare Foundation, Florida Nursing Student Association Dean of the Year, Great 100 Nurses of Florida, National League for Nursing’s Martha E. Rogers Award and New York University’s Distinguished Alumna Award. She is certified as an Advanced Holistic Nurse and Integrative Health and Wellness Coach, and has studied and/or completed certificate programs in aromatherapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction, high touch jin shin, guided imagery, meditation, Reiki and yoga.