Professor Janet McCord holds a Master of Arts from Andover Newton Theological School and a Doctor of Philosophy from Boston University. She is a Fellow in Thanatology, a credential awarded by the Association for Death Education and Counseling, a professional association for which she is also a Past President. Currently she is the Chair of the Edwin S. Shneidman Department of Thanatology. Under the direct supervision of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, and UCLA Professor Emeritus Dr. Edwin S. Shneidman, she focused her doctoral dissertation on Holocaust survivor writers who killed themselves after the war, utilizing psychological pain theories of Dr. Shneidman to conduct literary psychological autopsies. Her doctoral work and her two mentors inspired her career trajectory as a lifelong suicidologist and thanatologist. She is certified as a Psychological Autopsy Investigator by the American Association of Suicidology and has served as a field researcher for two large psychological autopsy projects. Her scholarship focuses on suicidology, general thanatology, and resilience in formerly abducted children in developing countries.
