Publications
"Does Religion Help with Nature Exposure? Faith as a Moderator" was presented to the committee in August 2024 and was the final step towards conferring my PhD as a psychologist in May 2025 from the University of Houston.
The dissertation utilized data from the wood project (https://thewoodsproject.org/); a non-profit which exposes inner-city students to wilderness experiences to increase character strengths & socio-emotional growth. I helped serve as a camp counselor for 3 years and thought it would be interesting to explore why certain students respond better to these trips, than others? I hypothesized that students who were 'higher' in their religiosity/spirituality would subsequently have higher reported 'nature connectedness' which would positively affect how they experienced the trips.
We also looked at other traits to better determine which students 'did better' such as personality characteristics, grade level, age and variables such as how students reported their own sense of motivation, grit/resilience, etc.
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“Education is the capacity to confront the situations posed by life.”
“Root of the word education is e-ducere, literally, to lead forth, or to bring out something which is potentially present. Education is identical with helping the person realize his potentialities.”
(Erich Fromm)
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And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion.
And he said:
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, ‘This for God and this for myself; this for my soul and this other for my body’?
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn. (Gibran, 1996, p. 48)