Melinda Acevedo

Melinda Acevedo is now a full-time continuing track instructor with the University of Delaware’s School of Nursing.

Acevedo first started full-time at the College of Health Sciences (CHS) in the fall of 2014 as the Simulation Lab Coordinator for the Center for Simulation Innovation, Interdisciplinary Education and Entrepreneurship. In 2020, Acevedo took a temporary position as the COVID surveillance coordinator for CHS.

With COVID in the rearview mirror, this fall, she’s looking forward to spending more time in the sim lab.

“I’ll be teaching various hands-on skills practicum courses,” she said. “At the end of these courses, we’ll turn the ante up and give them patient scenarios, where they’ll have to make important clinical decisions about a patient’s care.”

This past year, Acevedo became a certified healthcare simulation specialist.

“It represents a standard of excellence in that specialty and justifies everything I’ve been working towards for the past eight years,” she said.

Acevedo will also play a role in students’ clinical experiences in the spring as the supervisor of Adult Health I Practicum, carefully pairing students with practicing nurses to ensure a strong experiential learning opportunity. The role was made for her. Acevedo has been on both sides of that partnership.

She previously floated between Med/Surg unit and step-down units at ChristianaCare hospitals. There, her manager told her she had a knack for teaching, and she began training new nurses and working with student nurses in their preceptorships. For Acevedo, who got her bachelor’s degree in nursing from UD and her master’s in nursing leadership at Wilmington University, ending up on the teaching side of nursing came as a surprise.

“I struggled with being a student, so it’s ironic that I love teaching. Those experiences made me realize I really like teaching, and I’m good at it,” she said. “I love seeing the students’ growth. You see them in the simulation center. You nurture them and see them through, and then you get to see them move on to the bedside, it’s rewarding,” she said.

Acevedo encourages her nursing students to do two things: get as many opportunities as possible to apply what they’re learning so they can transfer their knowledge and skills to bedside care and always ask questions.

“The profession is constantly evolving. Due to research, evidence-based practices are changing in our world,” Acevedo said. “I tell my students--don’t do something because you’re afraid to ask a question. Don’t do something if you don’t know the answer, and you’re just guessing. Go find the answer. I think that gives them the platform to go to the bedside and be successful in their preceptorship.”

While practical reasons like job security and salary played a role in Acevedo’s decision to become a nurse, it was her experience as a 14-year-old in the hospital with pneumonia that really inspired her career path.

“I will never forget how great the nurse, Betty, at St. Francis Hospital was. It was the first time I had to stay at a hospital overnight, and I cried, and I cried, and I cried. My mom couldn’t stay with me because I had siblings, so she went home at night. That nurse stuck with me overnight. She stayed with me well after her shift until my mom showed up.”

While she’ll always remember nurse Betty as the driving force behind her becoming a nurse, it’s now the students who remind Acevedo why she became a nurse.

“It’s really draining at the bedside, and I had felt a lot of strain being at the bedside, and that was before COVID even hit,” she said. “But the students humble me. They’re so excited and so green, and when you teach them something new, and they do it and connect with their patients, and there’s a positive outcome, you realize why you went into the profession in the first place.”

In her free time, Acevedo enjoys spending time with her children, ages 6 and 3, and their dog Mimi. She’s also addicted to reading, working out, tacos, and coffee – not necessarily in that order.

Michelle Erli

Michelle Erli is a new assistant professor in the University of Delaware’s School of Nursing.

Erli got her undergraduate nursing degree from UD in 2011 and her doctor of nursing practice from the University of Virginia in 2017. She worked as a nurse in the emergency room and ICU in the Virginia/D.C. area and as a health clinic nurse at Alexandria City Public Schools. Most recently, Erli taught at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered her to pivot to teaching.

“During the pandemic when the hospital shutdown, they needed a lot more support staff in teaching and doing more virtual simulation lab skills. I started doing that to help and really found that I loved it. I loved watching the students learn.

This fall, she’s teaching pathophysiology to undergraduate students.  

Erli’s personal experience with nurses converged with her interest in science to inspire her career in nursing.

“My grandmother was ill before I went to college, and I saw how wonderful the nurses were who took care of her. I’ve also always loved science and anatomy and using my critical thinking skills, so the combination of having a great experience with nurses and having the interest in biology and science drew me to the profession.”

Erli is also in the process of getting her master of science in public health from George Washington University.

 “I want to look more broadly at health and incorporate that into my practice and teaching,” she said. “I want my students to recognize that our patients are a person and that we’re taking care of them, but also to take a step back and look at some of the big-picture items we can do in our daily lives to make a difference for patients, for friends, and the community around us because health affects everyone.”

Erli pointed to being more environmentally conscious and self-aware.  

“Reuse your water bottle and be conscious of the way you treat people. A smile can help someone who you might not realize isn’t having the best day,” she said.

Despite loving her undergraduate years at UD, Erli never envisioned coming back to campus as a professor.

“It feels like coming home. It's very familiar. I love that. I feel very comfortable and excited and happy to be here,” she said. “I’m a very proud alum and can’t wait to go to a football game.”  

In her free time, Erli loves hiking and camping with her fiancée and their Bernese Mountain Dog. She’s also a marathon runner.

Katherine Haigh

For Katherine Haigh, teaching at the University of Delaware has always been a career goal.

Haigh, who completed her undergraduate, master’s, and doctorate all at UD wanted to give back the institution that propelled her career in nursing.

“Teaching at UD has always been my dream. Of course, I wanted to gain experience in research, but I came back to obtain my doctorate because I knew I wanted to work here as an assistant professor in the School of Nursing. I wanted to have the same impact on students that my professors at UD had on me.”

Now, Haigh has been hired as a continuing track assistant professor in the University of Delaware’s School of Nursing. She joined the faculty as an adjunct in the fall of 2021.

This fall, she’s teaching Women’s Health Across a Lifespan to senior nursing students.

“We have clinicals that focus on labor and delivery and postpartum, but this didactic course is really looking at how our health evolves over time from being a younger woman through menopause and post-menopause, looking closely at those changes that occur,” she said.

She’ll also be teaching Health Assessment, a foundational course, to sophomores.

“My primary concern with this course is to fully set up students with the critical background and assessment knowledge that they need. These are the foundations of what nursing care is and provides. For students to be able to successfully complete assessments on patients is a huge skill to learn,” she said.

Additionally, Haigh will coordinate women’s health clinicals for senior nursing students.

Haigh worked at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia while obtaining her master’s. She worked at Bio Identical Options and Rad Fertility while pursuing her doctor of philosophy in nursing science. As a certified nurse practitioner, Haigh continues to see patients at Bio Identical Options.

For Haigh, her path to nursing wasn’t always clear. She entered UD as a freshman medical technology major.

“I loved the science behind medical technology, but I missed talking to people. I just love interacting with people,” she said. “My grandmother was a nurse, and I always enjoyed hearing her stories. Transitioning from medical technology to nursing was the best decision of my life. The instructors were so encouraging; they provided me with guidance and gave me clinical opportunities that I would not have ever thought of for myself.”

Her amazing experience as a student on various levels at UD inspired her to ultimately teach here.

“As nurses, we do a lot of educating patients. Now, I’m helping new nurses learn the craft. I knew I always wanted to teach at this level,” she said. “UD is like a family. UD has a lot of possibilities. UD gave me a lot of experiences, including training at the National Institutes of Health, research opportunities, and speaking engagements internationally. While Delaware is small, UD has a reach that’s much farther while still successfully maintaining that community feel.”

Haigh has three children, ages 13, 11, and 8. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and taking them to UD football games.

“They love coming to campus. They all want to be the Blue Hens of the future.”

Christine Hanna-Ronald

Christine Hanna-Ronald, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, is now a full-time instructor at the University of Delaware’s School of Nursing.

This fall, she’ll be teaching graduate-level Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing and Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing Practitioner’s Practicum which contains a clinical component in the field. She’ll teach similar courses on the undergraduate level as well and spend time in the Center for Simulation Innovation, Interdisciplinary Education and Entrepreneurship.

“It’s key for students to understand the value of a reflective practice early on in their nursing career. The helping professions require a unique level of dedication and personal contribution. We utilize the ‘self’ in the delivery of care, so recognizing and examining our own humanity is key.”

She also stressed:

“We must be healthy ourselves and keep in mind biases and our experiences that we’re bringing to the table and make sure to leave whatever’s unnecessary at the door to really be present with our patients,” she said. “In order to be a good caregiver, you have to be good to yourself first.”

Hanna-Ronald comes from a family of nurses. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all nurses. She obtained her undergraduate nursing degree from the University of Maryland and her master’s degree in psychiatric nursing from Ohio State University.

She has previously worked at ChristianaCare, Union Hospital and several other facilities in Ohio and Maryland in Med-Surg Nursing, Neurology, Family Practice, Substance Abuse Treatment, Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment and Crisis Intervention. Her family has strong ties to UD; her father, brother and sister are all Blue Hens. From 2003 to 2015, Hanna-Ronald provided undergraduate clinical support for UD nursing students. She departed for a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to serve as clinical director on a wide-ranging $5 million federal grant awarded to the Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health to examine early intervention aimed at improving long-term outcomes for youth facing serious mental illness.

“It was a multidisciplinary team, so I worked on outreach, policy, supporting parents, educating the public, and other professionals on the early symptoms of psychosis, looking at it from a preventative lens,” she said.  

She called working on the grant project rewarding.

“As a team, we did outreach to almost every school in Delaware,” she said. “We really made a positive difference in educating people and decreasing stigma around mental health and mental illness in youth.”

She called returning to teaching a way to continue to explore these areas and see new perspectives.

“It’s such an honor to teach and give back to the next generation of nurses and helping shape the way that they see things through my experience is certainly a privilege,” she said.

In her spare time, Hanna-Ronald enjoys spending time with her family, spending time outdoors, traveling, and exploring music, culture, food, and art.

Christine Hoch

Christine Hoch has been promoted to tenure-track assistant professor in the School of Nursing, where she’s been an instructor for nearly a decade.

Her new position will enable her to focus on research she started while obtaining her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

“There aren’t a lot of nurses who have a Ph.D. because we work at a bedside, and we end up being advanced practitioners,” she said. “For me, that’s a big accomplishment. What I’m reaching for is to establish myself as an expert in heart failure and the symptom science of heart failure and advance the science.”

She recently published a scoping review entitled Fatigue in Heart Failure in the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. Her work will include collaborations with a biochemist and cardiologist in Baltimore that will help jumpstart her work at the Cardiovascular Physiology Research Laboratory on UD’s STAR Campus.

“I will be studying the physiologic basis of symptoms in patients with heart failure. I’m specifically looking at energy metabolism of cells and the relationship that has to the symptom of fatigue in heart failure,” Hoch said.

“It’s uncommon for a nurse to work with cellular mitochondria, and I think that makes it very exciting. Working with an interdisciplinary team, we share our respective expertise, so it’s a great collaboration.”

This fall, Hoch will be teaching a graduate-level Advanced Pathophysiology course and will co-instruct a critical care elective course.

“Pathophysiology is the study of disease. While we look at diseases, manifestations of disease and how to diagnose them, students also need to remember that there’s a person behind every disease. That human aspect of patient care is so important. They’re managing care of a person not a disease” Hoch said.

Hoch, who got her bachelor of science and master of science in nursing at the University of Delaware, called becoming a full-time faculty member at UD a “full-circle” moment for her.

“I feel like I’m sitting on the shoulders of giants. Faculty who taught me are still faculty members; they mentored me and continue to mentor me. Kathy Schell, who was my undergraduate adviser, has been a huge mentor to me,” she said. “It feels great to give back to the University. I also know where the students are coming from, and I understand the rigor of the nursing program having gone through it, so I’m best able to support them.”  

Hoch previously worked in the cardiovascular critical care complex at ChristianaCare for 15 years.

“I find gratification, enjoyment and fulfilment in working with patients,” she said. “I also like understanding the disease, the medications and how they work, and the technology that comes with working inside an ICU. I’m one of those people who really likes to understand how the body works.”

From student to professor, Hoch says she truly sees the value in a UD nursing education.

“There’s a lot of pride in being a UD nurse. The community knows the caliber of nurse that’s going to come out of our program,” she said. “But the bigger piece to that is not just that they understand the skill or have the knowledge, it’s that they can articulate and be professional in some profoundly intimate situations.”

Hoch’s son is a collegiate swimmer in his sophomore year at Elizabethtown College. In her free time, she enjoys attending his swim meets, spending time with her Frenchie (#FrenchieMom), and gardening.

Megan Roth

Megan Roth is now a full-time instructor for the University of Delaware’s School of Nursing.

In 2007, Roth got her undergraduate degree in animal science from UD, thinking she wanted to be a veterinarian.

“After working at a large animal hospital, I realized I like my animals happy and healthy, and I wanted to take care of humans,” she said.

She then enrolled in UD’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science Nursing Program and went on to obtain her master of science in nursing with a nurse practitioner’s concentration in adult-gerontology acute care from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 2016.

Roth began teaching as an adjunct at UD in 2017 and was hired part-time during the COVID-19 pandemic. In her new full-time position, she’ll be responsible for students’ adult Med/Surg clinicals at Christiana Hospital.  

“Early on in my bedside nursing career, I enjoyed working with nursing students and helping them with their preceptorships. I took on charge roles and other educational opportunities. I’ve always enjoyed having new nurses or student nurses alongside me. It also helps me continue learning,” she said.

Roth worked at ChristianaCare for more than a decade, but currently works at University of Pennsylvania Hospital as an acute care nurse practitioner in the ICU focusing on neurotrauma and neurosurgery.

She called students’ time in the clinical setting most valuable to their education.

“Students spend so much time focusing on challenging didactic courses to learn the basics of their knowledge, but then being able to take that knowledge into a live setting with real patients in a hospital and apply it, to critically think on their feet and intertwine that with human relationships, and work within a community of healthcare providers—it’s awesome to watch it all come together for them.”

Roth is looking forward to advising and mentoring students. She wants them to be active learners and participants in their education.

“I want them to really apply what they know and critically think so they can best take care of their patients in varying situations,” she said. “I also really want them to interact with families and patients and remember that their patient is somebody’s loved one. There’s somebody who cares about this person and doesn’t want them to be in pain. Students need to remember what they’re here for—to take care of people.”

But the learning goes both ways.

“My students keep me on the ball; they challenge me. For example, maybe, I’m teaching something a certain way because that’s how I’ve always done it versus current best practices,” she said. “They’re eager; they want to know, and they keep me learning more because if they want answers, and I don’t know it, we learn it together.”  

For fun, Roth enjoys spending time with her 11-year-old daughter, Kinsley. Together, they ride and take care of their two horses, Tex and Lewy. 

Amanda Young

Amanda Young has become a full-time continuing track faculty instructor in the University of Delaware’s School of Nursing.

She first began teaching in the College of Health Sciences in 2020. This fall, she’ll oversee Professional Nursing Skills Practicum, an undergraduate course in the Center for Simulation Innovation, Interdisciplinary Education and Entrepreneurship on STAR Campus. She said simulation adds value to UD’s nursing education.

“It gives students a safe place to learn and practice,” she said.

But she’ll also spend time with students in Christiana Hospital’s Med/Surg unit as part of their clinical rotation.

“That’s my specialty. It was my first job when I graduated from the University of Delaware with my nursing degree,” Young said. “It’s nice to be back at Christiana in a different role and be a resource for both their new nurses and the student nurses I’ll take there.”

In 2018, Young also got her master of science in nursing from UD which helps her relate to her students.

“It really is this big full circle moment for me. I pull from my experiences as a student when I talk to my students and let them know I’ve been in their shoes. That helps put them at ease.”

Her biggest goal is to create a safe learning environment for students.

“If they feel comfortable, they’ll learn better. I let them know, it’s OK to make mistakes and ask questions,” she said. “I want to be the person for them who can be a resource to them, but also promote self-learning so they take some responsibility for their schooling.”

Young was drawn to nursing as a teen watching the cohort of surgical interns on Grey’s Anatomy.

“Back then, I thought they were nurses—they were very hands-on--but they’re doctors, and they were helping people. I’ve always been someone who wanted to help others—someone who’s very caring and nurturing by nature. That’s the basis of it—just wanting to help people,” she said. “There are also so many areas of nursing you can get into. I like the challenge of trying new things. It helps me change and grow within my career.”

Young made the transition from bedside patient care in a hospital setting to the classroom in 2020 after she said she hit a ceiling.

“I knew I didn’t want to get into hospital leadership. I wanted to stay connected to patients, and I really liked teaching when I did preceptorships or oriented new staff in the hospital. Teaching also reaffirms my knowledge of nursing,” she said. “Teaching was a great way to start a new trajectory for myself.”

Young loves being a mom to her three boys, ages 4.5, 3, and 7 weeks. Young is a frequent traveler to Disney World and enjoys spending time at the beach and the pool. She hopes to get back into recreational soccer soon.