Dr. Fornari is a Professor in Science Education, Occupational Health and Family Medicine. She is an Associate Dean of Educational Skills Development, Zucker SOM (ZSOM) and is the Vice President of Faculty Development for the 23 hospitals of Northwell Health. Her faculty development role at both institutions is designed to align the UME, GME and CPD continuum. In June 2021 she received from IAMSE the Distinguished Career Award for Excellence in Teaching and Educational Scholarship. In May 2022, she was awarded the Association of American Medical Colleges/Northeast Group of Educational Affairs, 2022 NEGEA Distinguished Educator Award.  

Recognizing a need for additional faculty development to align UME and GME education, in 2016 she created and admitted the inaugural cohort to a Master of Health Professions Education (MSED) degree program. As Program Director, she supports high level faculty development for interprofessional educators who desire an advanced degree in education.

She has developed and implemented longitudinal professional development opportunities for faculty. In 2021 she launched “Just in Time Teaching TIPS (JiTTs) Infographic App as a new free open access faculty development resource. In addition, she oversees longitudinal workshop series entitled “Learning Drives Teaching and Assessment”, “Educational Research Skills Development” and “Chief Resident: Leading, Managing and Mentoring”. Since 2014 she has implemented an interactive online monthly medical education journal club to create a system-wide platform to discuss evidenced based medical education literature. In 2015 she co-edited her first IAMSE Manual entitled How-To Guide for Active Learning.

An interest in health humanities and reflective practice has supported successful implementation of health humanities curriculum at the ZSOM and Northwell Health. This focus also supports an AAMC/NEGEA SIG on Health Humanities as a Teaching and Learning Strategy.

Since 2014 she leads a longitudinal interprofessional development program, Mentoring and Professionalism in Training (MAP-IT), that focuses on developing mentoring skills in clinicians to achieve humanistic relationships with trainees, colleagues and ultimately patients across the continuum. In 2021, she is co-editor of her second IAMSE Manual, Mentoring in Health Professions Education: Evidence Informed Strategies.

Dr. Fornari obtained her EdD, Higher Education, College Teaching and Academic Leadership at Columbia University, Teachers College in 2001. Her research interest was focused on curriculum to support ethical decision making for healthcare professionals. Her interest in ethics education has continued and she obtained a Graduate Certificate in Clinical Bioethics from Hofstra University in 2018 and in 2021 she received certification as a Healthcare Ethics Consultant-Certified (HEC-C).