David Alexander Ph.D.

Education

Postdoctoral Studies, Center for Addiction Research & Education, University of Florida College of Medicine
Doctor of Philosophy, Centre for Trauma, Asylum & Refugees, University of Essex (U.K.)
Master of Theology, Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary

Biography

David Alexander is a Captain (O-6) in the Navy Chaplain Corps. He holds additional qualification designators as a Fleet Marine Force Qualified Officer and a Marine Corps Static Line Parachutist. Over 20+ years of service, he has deployed twice to Afghanistan and once to Southwest Asia in support of combat operations. He has participated in an extended Arctic deployment in support of research and rescue operations. He has also participated in more than a dozen humanitarian projects and missions on 6 continents. Chaplain Alexander currently serves as TYCOM Chaplain for Naval Medical Forces Pacific, supervising a team of 35+ professionals providing spiritual and psychosocial support to medical and humanitarian forces operating throughout INDOPACOM.

After completing undergraduate and graduate theological training in the United States, he traveled abroad to complete a Ph.D. at the Centre for Trauma, Asylum & Refugees at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. His doctoral tutorials, international field placement, and dissertation were all accomplished under the supervision of Professor Renos Papadopoulos. Since 2016, Chaplain Alexander has served on numerous theological and social science faculties. At USUHS he is primarily involved in writing and research consultation related to the impact of spirituality on human performance under adversity. His secondary specialization centers on the range of impacts religious actors may have on global health/humanitarian operations, especially among displaced peoples. He has authored more than 25 book chapters and peer-reviewed articles in these two fields. His newest book is forthcoming in June 2025, entitled "Lessons from My Teachers on Hypostatic Spiritual Care" (Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2025).

Career Highlights: Positions, Projects, Deployements, Awards and Additional Publications

Training Director, U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps Clinical Pastoral Education Programs (2025-present).

U.S. Appointee/Research Team Member, NATO Science & Technology Task Teams 329, 352, and 309 (2022-2024).

Deputy for Strategic Religious Affairs, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2022-2023).

Clinical Pastoral Counselor/NC-00119, State of North Carolina (2022-present).

Senior Fellow in Religion & Inclusive Societies, United States Institute of Peace (2021-2023).

Research Program Manager and Principal Investigator, Consortium for Health & Military Performance (2019-2022).

Visiting Fellow, Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex (2017-present).

Co-Principal Investigator, CTAR Project on Refugee Care in the Pacific Rim. Funded by ESRC-UK (2015-2022).

CPE Training Supervisor-Educator, Clinical Pastoral Education International (2013-present).

Representative Bibliography

Alexander, D. "Lessons From My Teachers on Hypostatic Spiritual Care." Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2025 (June).

Alexander, D, and Letovaltseva, T. "Psychosocial workers and indigenous religious leaders: an integrated vision for collaboration in humanitarian crisis response." Religions, 14(802), 2023, 1-12.

Alexander, D, and Deuster, P. “Aligning and Assessing Core Attributes of Spiritual Fitness for Optimizing Human Performance.” Journal of Special Operations Medicine, Vol. 21, No. 1, March 2021, 74-77.

Alexander, D, Abulhawa, Z, and Kazman, J. “The SOCOM Spiritual Fitness Scale: Measuring ‘Vertical’ and ‘ Horizontal’ Spirituality in the Human Performance Domain.” Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, Vol. 74, No. 4, November 2020, 269-279.

Alexander, D. “Walking Together in Exile: Medical Moral Injury and the Clinical Chaplain.” Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, Vol. 74, No. 2, June 2020, 82-90.

Alexander, D. “From Theory to Impact: Expanding the Role of Non-Psychiatric Moral Injury Theorists in Direct Veteran Care.” Moral Injury and Beyond: Understanding Human Anguish and Healing Traumatic Wounds. R. K. Papadopoulos, Ed. Routledge (New York), April 2020., 132-150.

Alexander, D. “When Seeing Does Harm: Avoiding Common Epistemological Dangers in Contemporary Refugee Research.” Journal of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, June 2019, 5-9.

Alexander, D. “Shay’s Thymos and Homer’s Thymos: How a Failure in Cross-Contextual Vigilance Has Limited the Contemporary Moral Injury Discourse.” Sophia Philosophical Review, Vol. XI, No. 2, Fall 2018, 41-56.

Alexander, D. “Defining and Differentiating Moral Injury’s Key Features.” Journal of Mental Health and Addiction Research, Vol. 3, No. 3, October 2018, 6-11.

Alexander, D. “Gregory is My Friend: on the Absorption of Evil in Combat.” War & Moral Injury: A Reader. Wipf & Stock (Eugene, OR), April 2018, 197-207.