Shannan Simms

Dr. Shannan L. Simms serves as adjunct faculty at Walden University at the intersection of behavioral science, organizational transformation, and cognitive psychology. Teaching across the College of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Studies, the College of Allied Health in the College of Management and Human Potential, she brings 25+ years of practitioner experience into academic environments - preparing leaders who can operate effectively inside complex, real-world systems, not just understand them conceptually.

Her teaching reflects a consistent focus on the intersection of individual psychology and external reality: how the invisible rules operating inside organizations, systems, and culture shape the decisions people make, the behavioral defaults, and the opportunities they act on or pass by.

At Walden, this focus surfaces across undergraduate instruction in psychology preparing AI literate working professionals, and doctoral preparation in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, as well as consulting capability development within Behavioral Health Leadership (PsyD) programs. Across all three areas, the through line is the same - helping learners see what's running underneath behavior before attempting to change it.

Dr. Simms has led high-stakes change and transformation initiatives across healthcare, government, energy, and higher education, working with leaders from the C-suite to the frontline to translate complex strategy into executable systems. Her applied learning contributions extend beyond the classroom, including the "Shift Happens" change management micro-course and a manager certification program supporting nursing leadership. Her academic work includes dissertation committee service, course development for lifelong learning programs, and national conference presentations, notably at the American Psychological Association Annual Convention.

Her current research advances a theoretical framework she calls the Invisible Loop, which offers an integrated account of why human behavior so often repeats itself in ways that resist the interventions designed to change it. Drawing on cognitive psychology, social psychology, and behavioral science, the framework proposes that patterned behavior is produced by the continuous interaction of two loops - an internal loop of conditioning, identity, and accumulated experience, and an external loop of context, structure, and situational cues - that converge below conscious awareness to generate both the response a person produces and the interpretation of reality that justifies it. The framework's core insight is that what appears to be individual deficit, resistance, or self-sabotage is most often the predictable output of a system the person cannot see operating, and that durable change requires intervention at both loops rather than at the individual alone. Her work extends the framework into clinical, organizational, and developmental applications, with particular attention to populations whose internal conditioning has been shaped by sustained exposure to environments not built for them.

Dr. Simms is the founder of The Unapologetic EDGE™, a thought leadership and strategic advisory platform focused on helping leaders understand the invisible forces shaping their decisions - and develop the metacognitive capacity to act on their own judgment with clarity and intention. Her work draws on behavioral science, cognitive psychology, and the psychology of gender to address the moments that matter most: when the system is moving fast, the rules are invisible, and the cost of defaulting is high.

She holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Development and Leadership, an M.A. in Psychology, and a B.A. in Psychology. She is a certified Prosci Advanced Instructor and Project Management Professional (PMP).

Courses Taught

IPSY 8005/6005 - Business Concepts for the Organization Development Professional

IPSY/PBHL/PSYC 8216/6216 - Dynamics of Contemporary, International, and Virtual Organizations

DRWI 8504 - Consulting Skills Intensive

IPSY/PSYC/PBHL 8214 - Consulting for Organizational Change

IPSY 8540 - Strategic Planning, Management, and Leadership in a Global Context

IPSY 8576 - Advanced Personnel Psychology

PSYC 3006 - Psychology of Gender

HRMG 4201 - Strategic Human Resource Management

Education

PhD, Ashford University

MA, Marymount University

BA, Kent State University