Four new faculty members have joined Penn State Shenango this fall. Tamrya d’Artenay, instructor in biology; Tammy Divens, instructor in occupational therapy; Joan Humphrey, instructor in nursing; and Kathy Shaffer, instructor in chemistry, began teaching at the Shenango campus in August.
“Penn State Shenango boasts quality education in a small campus setting,” stated Elaine Andrews, assistant to the campus director. “Our goal for our students is to get the best education from leading faculty members in their field. I am pleased to say that our four new faculty members represent our campus’ mission of excellence in teaching.”
d’Artenay comes to the Shenango campus from the mid-west where from 2011 to 2014 she was a visiting assistant professor of biology at Morningside College in Sioux City, Louisiana., and taught courses in environmental issues, human anatomy, human biology, natural history of medicinal plants, and plants and society, as well as others. In 2011, she held the position of senior teaching fellow at Southern Illinois University, teaching excellence in math and science to elementary science educators, coordinating teaching assistants in laboratories, as well as restructuring and creating new laboratories,
For more than a decade, d’Artenay has been completing research on the identification and processing of plant specimens for museum collections while receiving numerous grants and scholarship money to complete her work. d’Artenay has presented her research abstracts at conferences across the United States and has been published.
In addition to her teaching and research, d’Artenay was a dynamic faculty member at Morningside College where she was on many campus committees and worked on student recruitment.
d’Artenay earned her doctoral degree in plant biology from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she completed her dissertation titled "Evolution of Male Gametes in Liverworts." She received her bachelor of arts degree in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Prior to being hired as a full-time faculty member at Penn State Shenango, Divens taught as an adjunct instructor at the Shenango campus. Her classroom experience also includes time spent as a teaching assistant for gross anatomy at Ohio State University.
In addition to teaching, Divens has been an employee for the past 17 years at Sharon Regional Health System, where she has worked in various positions, including inpatient rehabilitation and home health care for adults, home health care for early intervention, and outpatient rehabilitation for both adults and pediatrics. She also has worked in the hospital’s behavioral health development program, adult program, and child and adolescent program. She is currently employed part-time at Hospitality Care in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, where she is responsible for the evaluation and treatment of skilled nursing residents to improve their functional independence.
Outside of teaching and her clinical work, Divens has volunteered as a student coordinator and as a teen shadowing mentor. She has had two articles published, the first on anger management “Anger: Friend or Foe” in Positive Teen magazine, and the second on torticollis “A Lesson In Comparison” in Advance for Occupational Therapy Practitioners.
Divens’ educational experience includes a master’s degree in educational leadership from Concordia University and a bachelor’s degree in allied health with a major in occupational therapy from Ohio State University. Divens’ occupational therapy prerequisites classes were completed at Columbus State University and her general education requirements were completed at Slippery Rock University. Divens finished her clinical education at The Rehabilitation Institute of Kansas City, Mo., and Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.Humphrey was a part-time instructor at the Shenango campus since 2001, teaching courses in nutrition, kinesiology, and physical therapy. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Youngstown State University, where she teaches in its Public Health degree program.
Along with teaching, Humphrey is employed at the Humility of Mary Health Partners in Youngstown and Warren, Ohio, where she has held positions as a clinical resource coordinator in the emergency department and served in critical care and emergency areas. Since 1986, Humphrey has worked at Sharon Regional Health System in its emergency, critical care and education areas. She is a registered nurse licensee in the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania and is an instructor for the American Heart Association.
Humphrey’s research interests include obesity prevention, fitness, HIV awareness, and health care. She has written numerous grants which were awarded to St. Patrick School in Hubbard, Ohio. She is also involved in the American Heart Association Heart Walk as a volunteer fundraiser and the HIV/AIDS Ministry through the Ursuline Sisters Motherhouse in Youngstown, Ohio.
Humphrey graduated with a doctor of nursing practice from the University of Massachusetts in 2013. She earned a master’s degree in public health education from Youngstown State University’s North East Ohio Universities and a bachelor’s degree in applied science degree Magna Cum Laude from Youngstown State University. She began her career in the health field upon graduating with a registered nursing degree from Sharon Regional Health System School of Nursing in 1994.
Shaffer has been teaching chemistry for higher education since the late nineties, most recently for Slippery Rock University where she was employed as a part-time chemistry instructor. Her portfolio also includes teaching at Westminster College, Edinboro University, and Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. In addition to being well-published, Shaffer has had two scholarly books published, Larson’s TI-73 Math Activities, Applications for the Real World and Explorations in Chemistry for the TI 82/83. She has presented her extensive research and work at numerous workshops.Outside the classroom, Shaffer has given countless hours of service to the Girl Scouts at both the local Troop and council level. In addition, she has been a volunteer at the organization's Shenango Valley Day Camp for the past eight years. Shaffer completed her doctoral degree in analytical chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh. Her dissertation was on “The Synthesis and Characterization of Amphiphilic Block Copolymers for Interfacial Studies.” Shaffer was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Joseph DeSimone, where they completed their research on heterogeneous polymerizations in liquid and supercritical carbon dioxide. While at Chapel Hill, Shaffer, along with colleagues J. DeSimone and T. Romack, D. Canelas, patented a method for heterogeneous polymerizations in carbon dioxide which was subsequently utilized in a commercial setting.
For more information about Penn State Shenango faculty, visit shenango.psu.edu.