Michelle Pearce, PhD is an assistant professor and clinical psychologist at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Medicine. She is also the director of the Death, Dying, and Mourning: Applied Thanatology online graduate certificate program. Dr. Pearce’s research seeks to answer the questions of how to best integrate religion/spirituality into the practice of psychotherapy, improve bereavement resilience, and meet the spiritual needs among people with cancer at the end of life. She is passionate about applying clinical research to improve patient care, well-being, and quality of life.
Dr. Pearce received her Ph.D. from Yale University, after completing an internship in medical psychology at Duke University Medical Center. She then completed two post-doctoral fellowships at Duke University Medical Center, one in CBT and one with the Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health. She also received advanced training in integrative medicine from the Center for Mind-Body Medicine.
Dr. Pearce has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, has given numerous local and national speeches, and has received several honors in her field. These honors include an early career psychologist credentialing scholarship awarded by the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology; the Jack Shand Research Award granted by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion for excellence in graduate research on the empirical study of religion; several awards from Yale University for distinguished academic achievement; and a Social Science and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship granted by the federal government of Canada.