Heather Servaty-Seib

Dr. Servaty-Seib is the senior associate vice provost for teaching and learning at Purdue University. She is a professor of Counseling Psychology in the College of Education with specialization in the field of thanatology (i.e., the study of death and dying) including late adolescent/young adults grief, suicidal ideation, and social support offered to the bereaved. She co-edited Assisting Bereaved College Students, a higher education resource, and We Get It, a book of narratives by grieving college students. Her scholarship has supported the development of college student grief absence policies at Purdue and other U.S. institutions. Dr. Servaty-Seib and her grief and loss research team developed the Perceived Impact of Life Event Scale, a measure that uses the gain/loss framework (i.e., all life events involve both gains and losses) to assess the multidimensional impact of single life events. Her engaged research has been supported by funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Lumina Foundation, and the John W. Anderson Foundation. Dr. Servaty-Seib was selected to serve as the lead editor of the most recent edition of the Handbook of Thanatology (2021).

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Research interests include a broad range of areas within the field of thanatology (i.e., the study of death and dying) with particular emphasis on late adolescent/young adult grief, death and dying-related communication issues, and social support offered to the bereaved. In addition, Dr. Servaty-Seib's research team focuses on a variety of non-death loss experiences (e.g., divorce, romantic breakup, sports injury) and has developed the Perceived Impact of Life Events Scale, an instrument that uses a gain/loss approach to assessing the multidimensional impact of single life events. Research Team (currently not admitting doctoral students at this time)

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