Donna has been with JMU since 2007 and has served in Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies, Honors, University Advising and the Hart School. She earned a BS, MA, and Ed.S from James Madison University. After a nearly two-year hiatus from higher education, serving as a Psychiatric Emergency Service Clinician in the Emergency Department at Sentara RMH, she returned to her JMU home to work directly with students in the Hart School.  

Donna is an alum of the Adult Degree Program and has a passion for lifelong learning. Her mantra is, “Learn something new every day”. She enjoys educating others of the importance of caring for their overall well-being, sharing the incredible difference higher education made in her life, and helping others reach their goals. 

Her research interests are in areas of legacy and vicarious trauma, crisis intervention and management, and post covid changes in higher education.

In her free time Donna enjoys reading, traveling, knitting, and spending time with her amazing husband and family and her rescue pug, Bella Lavinia.