Marcia Brennan, Ph.D., is a career educator and an award-winning teacher and author. She is the Carolyn and Fred McManis Professor of Humanities at Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA, where she also serves as professor of art history and professor of religious studies. Since 2009, she has served as artist in residence in the Department of Palliative, Rehabilitation, and Integrative Medicine at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. In 2021, she expanded this practice to serve as Literary Artist at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she works in both general oncology and transplantation oncology. She is the recipient of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center Book Prize, the Steve Thorney Award for the Promotion of Humanitarian and Spiritual Care in the Clinical Field, and Rice University's George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching.