Chair: Dr. Tatiana Sánchez Parra

Ana Quirk earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico, and later received a Master of Marriage and Family Therapy degree from Lipscomb University in 2021.

Ana’s primary work has centered on counseling survivors of sexual assault, traumatic grief, and end-of-life care. She is passionate about culturally sensitive advocacy and education and has served underrepresented communities as a bilingual clinical therapist and AAMFT-Approved Supervisor Candidate, and as an end-of-life midwife. Ana was awarded a College of Arts & Sciences Graduate Fellowship, and her research interests include mortuary and mourning rituals in Southern Appalachia, the role of ceremony and community in grief, the influence of Appalachian folklore on burial practices and meaning making in death, funerary taphonomy, mass disasters, and human rights violations.