Marianne P. Florian, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow in Religion and Medicine

Dr. Marianne P. Florian, Ph.D., serves as the Institute for Spirituality and Health’s inaugural Post-Doctoral Fellow in Medical Humanities. This is a shared position with the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at UTHealth McGovern Medical School. In this role, Dr. Florian supports the Institute's Rabbi Samuel E. Karff Center for Healthcare Professionals, where she leads key initiatives aimed at deepening the integration of spirituality in healthcare. She organizes and facilitates conferences and symposia for healthcare professionals and is developing a national curriculum focused on spirituality and health for medical students. To assess this need, she partners with students from Rice University’s Medical Humanities Program, researching whether and how spirituality and health learning is currently integrated into American medical school education. At the McGovern Medical School, she develops and teaches courses in medical humanities and biomedical ethics and mentors medical students enrolled in the medical humanities’ scholarly concentration.

Dr. Florian is an active member of the American Academy of Religion and affiliated with Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics and Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture. She has an extensive record of publications and speaking engagements, with her research featured in numerous peer-reviewed journals and presented at national conferences. Prior to joining the Institute, she taught courses in religion and health in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida.

Dr. Florian earned a Ph.D. from Emory University in American Religious Cultures with a Graduate Certificate in Mind, Brain, and Culture. She also holds a Master of Theological Studies from the Candler School of Theology, as well as a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degree in French from the University of South Carolina.

She has received numerous prestigious awards and honors throughout her academic career. These include the Mellon PhD Interventions Project Dissertation Completion Fellowship and the George W. Woodruff Fellowship, both from the Laney Graduate School at Emory University. She was also awarded the McNair Scholarship and the National Merit Scholarship during her undergraduate studies at the University of South Carolina.

Dr. Florian speaks French and Spanish and enjoys a variety of creative hobbies and interests, including collage art, music, sewing, crafting, and perfumery. In her free time, she loves spending time with family and is known for her sense of humor.