Megan Ciacci Petrella, Assistant Professor of Dental Hygiene, goes full circle in her career

As a child, Megan Ciacci Petrella would play pretend by placing braces on her dolls and today she is an educator in dental hygiene for students that are striving to achieve their goals.

Ciacci Petrella was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and moved to Caldwell, Ohio at six-years-old. After spending a year there, she and her family which consisted of her mother, father and younger brother moved to Pleasant City, Ohio for the remainder of her childhood.

Her time was spent in this small town in the country and on her grandparents’ farm when she was growing up. A lot of her memories come from the town, being outdoors and the time that she spent with her family.

After being asked what her favorite thing about her childhood home was, she stated: “My favorite thing about my childhood home was the country, rural location. We had a big yard and plenty of space. I could look out my window and see farm fields and plenty of trees and grass all around.”

When she was in high school and trying to figure out what career to go into, she was able to receive insight from a friend’s sister that was in the West Liberty University’s Dental Hygiene program. She made the decision to shadow at a local office and pursue dental assisting after graduating from Shenandoah High School in 2006.

Ciacci Petrella graduated from Jefferson Community College in 2008, now known as Eastern Gateway Community College, with an Associate Degree in Dental Assisting. While working to complete this degree, listening to an instructor in one of her classes made her feel like education was something she was going to pursue, as she had always felt education was something she would want to go into.

She made the statement, “So, simply put from then on it was a goal of mine to be a dental educator.”

To continue working towards this goal, she pursued a Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene and graduated from the program at West Liberty University in 2013. She went on to be an educator in the dental assisting program at Eastern Gateway Community College after graduating. Timing made things difficult which persuaded her to work in private practice full-time.

Throughout this period, she met her husband Jay and made a permanent move back to Steubenville, Ohio in 2014. They have three children consisting of Jameson who is five-years-old, Maylynn who is three and Aida who is one. She recognizes the connection of now raising her own family in the place that she is originally from. She stated that her most favorite hobby is “being a mom.”

Her family participates in many activities. She said: “We participate in sports, soccer and baseball, dance and tumbling, gymnastics, and ninja class (American Ninja warrior type class). We spend a lot of time at the lake and on the boat, go cart or fishing. We do festivals, fairs and local events.”

When the Master of Science in Dental Hygiene was introduced at West Liberty, she was immediately interested. She saw this as an opportunity to make her way back into an educator role. She applied, was accepted and graduated with her MSDH as part of the first cohort of students in 2021.

Now, by taking on the role of an Assistant Professor of Dental Hygiene at WLU in 2021 she is not only accomplishing her goal of being an educator but is also working at the institution with colleagues that have been her mentors.

She stated, “They show so much compassion, support and guidance with not only their students, but with me as well. I could not ask for a better position.”