Ashlee Shields, PhD, RN, CCRN
Assistant Professor of Nursing
Coordinator, Online Nursing Programs
The School of Health Professions is dedicated to training the next generation of healthcare leaders and professionals.
Assistant Professor of Nursing
Coordinator, Online Nursing Programs
When Madeliene Peterson pulls into the Cleveland Clinic parking garage, she knows she’s got to be at her very best for the next 12 hours. People’s lives depend on it.
“It’s very difficult on a lot of days,” says Madeliene, a registered nurse in the cardiovascular ICU. “I have very, very ill patients who could have heart attacks at any given moment.”
Erica Snyder thought she wanted to go far away from home for college. So she left Pittsburgh to study at the University of Alabama.
But by the end of her freshman year, Erica realized that smaller classes and more interaction with faculty were important to her. So the education major transferred to Robert Morris University, just a few miles from where she grew up. And pretty soon, she was traveling again.
Megan is studying early childhood education at Robert Morris. A unique experience came to life thanks to RMU’s Office of Scholar Development, which helped Megan apply for a one-of-a-kind scholarship.
Megan spent the Spring 2019 semester at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, under the U.S. State Department Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship.
Department Head, Psychology and Health Sciences
Associate Professor of Psychology
Sport and exercise psychology, counseling, student-athlete development
The sport psychology concentration focuses on the mental side of sport and exercise, applying principles of psychology to improve athletic and exercise performance. Students explore how psychological factors affect sport performance and how engaging in sport and exercise impacts a person’s physical health and psychological well-being. The focus is on developing mental skills that improve performance and on assisting athletes struggling with a variety of mental health issues, including performance anxiety, injury, depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse.
The clinical psychology concentration is a pre-professional program designed to prepare students for graduate training in counseling or clinical psychology. It includes content and theory as well as exposure to rudimentary clinical skills through role plays and assessments. Practice as a professional counselor or clinical psychologist requires a graduate degree and licensure; this concentration builds foundational clinical skills that can be honed and extended during graduate training.
A young mother walked into Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia panic-stricken. Her infant daughter, cradled in her arms, was motionless. Dana Davis ‘18, then a nursing intern from Robert Morris University, was among the first to intercede. “The baby was barely breathing,” says Davis. “She was almost blue.” Davis escorted the mother into the trauma unit while the child was taken into surgery. “They hit the ‘code’ button, and once they hit that button, everyone comes running,” she says. Hours later, the baby was OK.