Michelle Walsh

Rev. Dr. Michelle A. Walsh is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister who completed her Ph.D. in practical theology with a concentration in pastoral theology and psychology at Boston University. She also holds a Master of Divinity and a Master in Social Work from Boston University and is a licensed independent clinical social worker. Rev. Dr. Walsh has worked for over 25 years in lay and professional urban ministry and social work and has directed two major mental health clinics. She currently is a Lecturer at the BU School of Social Work and also teaches at Meadville Lombard Theological School and Bunker Hill Community College. Michelle continues to expand her practice for activists and preaches in UU congregations throughout New England, where she is a honing a message related to climate change. She also is completing her certification as an individual and group spiritual director through Still Harbor. She can be reached through her website at www.revmichellewalsh.com.

Rev. Walsh has published a book from her dissertation study of two trauma response ministries entitled Violent Trauma, Culture, and Power: An Interdisciplinary Study of Lived Religion (for more on her work, see this author interview on CPT Today). From these same studies, she also has a published chapters in Post-Traumatic Public Theology and Lived Religion and Trauma ​as well as in Taking It to the Streets: Public Theologies of Activism and Resistance. Her research interests have been in the pastoral and public dimensions of trauma, theology, spirituality, and lived religion, particularly in the urban context. She has done pilot studies on African-American youth rituals in the aftermath of violence and loss.

Areas of Teaching Interest: Public and Pastoral Theology, Spirituality and Social Work, Trauma and Psychology, Cultural Oppressions and Liberation Social Justice Movements, Interdisciplinary Studies, Lived Religion and Ethnographic Methods, Ethics and Pedagogy within Higher Education”