Gina Belton

Gina Subia Belton, Ph. D., is an Associate Professor in the Mind-Body Medicine Program, developed and directs the Contemplative End-of-Life Care Specialization. She is a transdisciplinary educator who teaches "sin fronteras"-without borders-in the Transformative Social Change, Integrative Social Work, and Humanistic Psychology programs. Raised in California by generations of Elders and Ancestors, long before "the border crossed them," her Chicanx and Mescalero Apache identity is alive in Mezistaje consciousness, grounding her ethnothanatological research and decolonial praxis.

Dr. Belton is the inaugural Chair of the President's JEDI Council at Saybrook University.

Gina Belton's teaching-learning philosophy is rooted in contemplative pedagogies and decolonial praxis, inviting students to turn toward deep learning through focused attention, reflection, and awareness practices, in learning as liberation. This teaching-learning experience is cultivated eco-psychologically to engage a student's coursework, research, and dissertation journey in such a way, that contemplation of feelings and insights, invites the connection of content with their learning and lived experience. Barbezat and Bush observed that "as students find more of themselves in their courses, they will make meaningful and lasting connections" to their scholarship and thus their lives and the lives of others. Gina is a sought-after dissertation committee member for her collaborative and compassionate support as well as her embodiment as a critical Indigenous researcher and her subject matter expertise in decolonial praxis, decolonizing approaches to research, thanatology, ethnogeriatrics, and qualitative research methodologies, which include Indigenous and critical methodologies, narrative inquiry, autoethnography, phenomenology, and community-based participatory action.

Mentored by national and international end-of-life thought leaders, such as Charles Garfield Ph.D., Frank Ostaseski, Joan Halifax, Frances Vaughn Ph.D., Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., Ram Dass, Dr. Belton's most outstanding Teachers are those dying and their beloveds. Gina is currently training with Upaya Institute and Zen Center, preparing to serve as a Buddhist Chaplain. Palliative Psychology concentrates Dr. Belton's private practice in spiritual midwifery at the end of life and grief support, tending to those living with life-limiting illnesses and chronic conditions, aging, dying, and grieving--well and in balance. Gina's community service is dedicated to uplifting Indigenous communities' mental health and wellness in suicide prevention and postvention.

Gina, her husband Marc, and their four-legged relative, Reggie the Lab, are humble guests on the unceded lands of the Wiyot, behind the "Redwood Curtain" of the California north coast.