While at University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), Dr. Monroe was the first nurse in the university to receive the prestigious Alma and Hal Reagan Pre-Doctoral Fellowship for his dissertation work examining cancer pain in people with dementia at the end of life.

Upon graduation, Dr. Monroe relocated to Vanderbilt University, where he completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science under the supervision of Dr. John Gore, and in the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing as a Claire M. Fagin and Atlantic Philanthropies Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of by Dr. Lorraine Mion.

Currently, Dr. Monroe’s research is focused on using novel psychophysical and neurophysiological approaches to examine pain in older adults with and without dementia. Dr. Monroe is the recipient of an NIH/NIA K23 career development award, two NIH/NIA R21 awards, and currently has an NIH/NIA R01 examining sex differences in pain reports and brain activation in people with Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Monroe holds fellowship status in the National Academies of Practice, the Gerontological Society of America, and the American Academy of Nursing.

Dr. Monroe earned a BSN degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1998, where he graduated cum laude. He earned his MSN from the University of Alabama College of Nursing in 2002, where he awarded the Sigma Theta Tau Outstanding Graduate Student Award. He received an MS degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Memphis. Dr. Monroe earned his PhD in nursing in 2010 from UTHSC, under the supervision of Michael Carter, DNSc, DNP, FAAN, FNP/GNP-BC.

Dr. Monroe joined the Ohio State University College of Nursing faculty as an associate professor of Nursing in 2018. Before joining the faculty at OSU, Dr. Monroe served as an assistant professor of nursing in the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.