Guest Faculty Bio

Jean Kristeller, PhD, received her doctorate in clinical and health psychology from Yale University in 1983, and her M.S. from the University of Wisconsin in psychophysiology and clinical psychology in 1978. She is currently Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for the Study of Health, Religion and Spirituality at Indiana State University, which is partially supported as part of the Metanexus Institute Local Societies Initiative. Previous appointments have been at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Harvard University Medical School. She currently researches the use of mindfulness meditation in treating binge eating disorder. She has been working with the use of meditation as a therapeutic tool for over 20 years, has taught courses on the psychology of meditation, and received a teaching fellowship from the Fetzer Institute for this work. Other research is in the area of spirituality with a focus on how health care professionals can effectively address spiritual concerns with seriously ill patients, and on a psychometric model of how spirituality can serve a protective function in development of drinking problems.