Staff Biographies

Kevin J. Flannelly, Ph.D. has been the associate director of research at HealthCare Chaplaincy in New York City since 2001. He received a B.A. in Psychology from Jersey City State College, an M.S. in Biopsychology from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. in Physiological Psychology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Kevin has published more than 130 scientific and professional articles in such diverse fields as developmental, physiological and cognitive psychology, program evaluation, psychopharmacology, gerontology, palliative care and religion and health. He has published over 60 articles on various topics related to religion, spirituality, and health since he began working in this area in 1996. Kevin’s current research includes studies on the spiritual needs of patients, the spiritual care practices of chaplains, the effectiveness of pastoral care and pastoral care education, and the influence of religious beliefs and practices on physical and mental health.

Kathleen Galek, Ph.D. received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University, her M.A. in Research Psychology from New York University, and her undergraduate degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. For her religious training in Zen Buddhism, Kathleen lived in the Buddhist Fire Lotus Temple for two years as part of a structured residency that combined daily meditation with sutra study.

She initially joined HealthCare Chaplaincy as a two-year post-doctoral fellow and has since accepted a staff position as our Research Associate and Post-Doctoral Coordinator. Kathleen’s research background has included work on spiritual development and the spiritual needs of patients, and her clinical work has involved patients with a variety of medical conditions, such as HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.  In her current private practice in New York City she works mainly with clients confronting addictions, such as compulsive shopping and addictive eating.

Jackson Kytle, Ph.D. is vice president for academic affairs at Chaplaincy. Formerly, he was the deputy provost of New School University, president of Goddard College, and provost at Antioch University. After his B.A. in English at Middlebury College, he received a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Columbia University where his interests in learning and motivation, evaluation research, and organizational change began. 

For three years he worked as a survey analyst with the Midtown Restudy where he used multivariate statistics to study the predictors of mental health status. His doctoral research using the General Social Survey focused on predictors of anomia, asking what protected individuals from experiencing rapid social change. Subsequently, Jackson and his students at Antioch used surveys to study life satisfaction in Columbia, Maryland and the predictors of consumer choice in the Columbia Mall. After Goddard, he taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where research for his 2004 book, To Want to Learn, started. His current research interests are program evaluation for non-profit organizations and the developmental challenges faced by young adults after college.

Sarah L. Weinberger-Litman received a Ph.D. in Experimental Health Psychology from the City University of New York, where she studied religious and sociocultural influences on disordered eating and body dissatisfaction among Jewish women. She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Behavioral Medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, where she studied coping and psychological adjustment in cancer survivors. She is the associate producer of "Hungry to Be Heard," a film exploring eating disorders in the Orthodox Jewish community.

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