Three nursing alums, spotlighted in their time as students, reflect on their paths and successes since Adelphi.
Back when she was a nursing student at Adelphi and cover star of the 2020 Adelphi University Magazine, Megan Rasiak ’21 (BSN/RN) was asked what specialty she wanted to pursue and responded without hesitation that her “dream” was to work in an intensive care unit. “I wanted to be tested,” she says. “And in my mind, the hardest specialty was an ICU.” The one thing she knew she didn’t want to do was pediatric nursing—but all that changed when she had her own daughter shortly after graduation.
Megan Rasiak ’21 is now a pediatric orthopedic nurse at the Hospital for Special Surgery.
“Once she was born, something changed inside my brain chemistry, and I was like that is what I am here for,” Rasiak says. “I want to take care of other people’s children.” Now she works as a pediatric orthopedic nurse at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City, caring for children suffering from everything from congenital deformities to athletic injuries. “I always said I’m never going to do pediatrics. Now, I couldn’t picture being anything else.”
Rasiak is one of three recent alumni who were interviewed during their time at Adelphi for the promise that they showed as students. All three have gone on to realize that promise in successful careers in nursing—though not necessarily in the ways they had planned.
Rasiak ran and finished the 2026 TCS New York City Marathon.
In Rasiak’s case, once she had decided on pediatric nursing, she pursued it with dogged determination, getting a job as a pediatric RN at Northwell Health despite a lack of experience. “I just got into the mindset of I’m going to convince everyone in the room that this is what I wanted my nursing career to be,” says Rasiak, who learned the ropes of everything from general medicine to the NICU while there. Her experience at HSS has not only made her more passionate about helping children—she is currently pursuing a pediatric nurse practitioner degree at New York University—but also changed her outlook on her own physical health. “I’ve gotten into running and fitness. It has truly changed my outlook on nursing, and life, and everything.”
Discovering a Love of Teaching
Joseph Amnawah, PhD ’24, is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and assistant professor and director of Molloy University’s Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program.
Joseph Amnawah, PhD ’24, by contrast, knew from the beginning he wanted to work with children. A former school nurse, he pursued research into how school nurses could better care for student mental health as part of his PhD in Nursing at Adelphi. At the time he was interviewed five years ago upon being awarded a prestigious Jonas Scholarship, he said he’d even “love to give back” by teaching at Adelphi in the future.
His path into academia began at Adelphi soon after when Marissa Abram ’08, PhD ’17, a former assistant professor at Adelphi, encouraged him to teach as an adjunct professor. “That really pushed me out of my comfort zone,” Amnawah says. Little did he know at the time, however, how much he would fall in love with teaching, or how much it would impact his later career. Now coordinator for the Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program and assistant professor of nursing at Molloy University on Long Island, Dr. Amnawah teaches multiple courses on both adult and pediatric psychiatry, while at the same time upgrading the curriculum with a new focus on clinical practice, telehealth and artificial intelligence.
In addition to his university role, Dr. Amnawah also works part time as a psychiatric nurse practitioner at Advantage Care Health Centers and has a small private practice as well. All of these roles complement each other, he says, making him both a better practitioner and better researcher. “When you’re in the clinic you can get tunnel vision, just seeing patients and prescribing meds. But being an academic, I get to do more research, and teaching a new generation of students, I am constantly having to stay up to date and aware of emergent therapies.”
Eyes Open to Possibility
Kimberly Korn ’15, MS ’21, is a psychiatric nurse practitioner with her own private practice.
Kimberly Korn ’15, MS ’21, took on early leadership roles as an undergraduate nursing student at Adelphi, elected to the board of directors of the National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA) and editing the organization’s magazine Imprint. Back in 2014, she said the experience was an excellent way to introduce readers to “all of the diverse roles there are in a nursing career.” Along with exposing her readers to possibilities, the role inspired Korn as well. “My eyes were opened to all these different career opportunities, not just working in a hospital,” she says.
After working as an RN at several clinics on Long Island post-graduation, she returned to Adelphi to earn her master of science degree as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Now she runs her own mental health practice in Dix Hills along with her husband, who is also a psychiatric nurse practitioner. They create treatment plans for adults and adolescents with anxiety, depression and other disorders, involving medication alongside holistic recommendations including diet and supportive psychotherapy.
In addition to the nursing skills she learned at Adelphi, she also finds herself using her background in leadership and communications as she markets her practice and onboards clients. “Being on the board [of NSNA] helped me become a more professional person, and I use a lot of the public speaking roles I learned because I talk a lot, especially during intake,” Korn says. “It built a lot of confidence, which was the point of the organization—to prepare students to enter the profession.”
Each in their own way, these three alums received the preparation during their time at Adelphi to launch fulfilling careers—even if at the time they didn’t know what form it would eventually take.