Duquesne clinical adviser found dead of gunshot wound

Photo Courtesy of Pittsburgh Police Ryan Hunt was found dead Sept. 28.
Photo Courtesy of Pittsburgh Police Ryan Hunt was found dead Sept. 28.
Photo Courtesy of Pittsburgh Police
Ryan Hunt was found dead Sept. 28.

By Julian Routh | Editor-in-Chief

A clinical supervisor in the Duquesne psychology department was found dead of a gunshot wound Sept. 28 in Fayette County, according to a release by Pittsburgh police.

Ryan Hunt, 40, of Observatory Hill, had been missing since Sept. 22 before he was found dead on state game land in German Township, according to police.

The cause of death was a gunshot wound, but the manner of death is still under investigation, according to the Fayette County Coroner’s Office. Hunt’s abandoned Toyota Prius was found nearby, police said.

Hunt was an adjunct faculty member at Duquesne and an alumnus of the university, Duquesne spokeswoman Bridget Fare said.

Clinical supervisors in the university’s psychology department are expected to supervise doctoral students who are doing clinical training. The supervisors meet once a week throughout the semester with their students.

Hunt was supervising one student this semester, Fare said. He had only worked for the university since the beginning of the fall semester.

Hunt appeared on the Facebook page of the university’s clinical psychology program in January. On its page, the department wrote that Hunt had given a presentation about the American Psychological Association.

Spiegel Freedman Psychological Associates, a practice in Pittsburgh that provides outpatient psychotherapeutic care, lists Hunt on its website as a clinician.

His biography page on the website says Hunt specialized in “treatment of mood and anxiety orders, adjustment disorders, personality disorders, stage of life transitions, relationship issues, and questions of personal meaning.”

It also says he earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from Duquesne and did postdoctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, where he provided treatment for cancer patients.