PEOPLE

Below are the team members who led the EBF during its peak operations and through to its closure in 2023. The EBF is no longer active, and no longer has staff, but its archived materials are maintained here by the International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology (ISSEP), which advances a whole field of research, application, and communication of perspectives that are often influenced by Ernest Becker’s ideas.

Deborah Jacobs, Executive Director

Deborah Jacobs first encountered Becker as a student of Sheldon Solomon at Skidmore College. Becker’s synthesis resonated with Deborah, giving structure to and affirmation of many things she already thought or observed. His work has provided a framework to guide Deborah’s understanding of human behavior ever since. Deborah joined the EBF board in 2006 and assumed leadership of the organization in 2015.

Deborah brought more than 20 years experience as a successful non-profit executive, including leadership roles in the ACLU and the Ms. Foundation for Women. She also brought extensive experience in organizational management as well as expertise in police practices and criminal justice reform, government transparency, voting rights, free speech, privacy, immigrant rights and women’s equality.

Deborah holds a B.A. in English Literature and an M.A. in Liberal Studies from Skidmore College. In 1990, she served as a Fulbright Scholar in Helsinki, Finland conducting a project related to Finnish Jewish identity.

Lyla Rothschild, Program Director

Lyla discovered Becker as an undergrad, after coming across a quote that piqued her interest while doing some required reading for class. Intrigued, she immediately went to the index and saw that the quote came from The Denial of Death. Thus began a fascination with Becker’s work—a natural fit for someone with a longtime interest in psychology and existentialism.

As early as she can remember, Lyla had a particular interest in understanding the motivations behind prejudice and tribalism, which she first observed on the playground at school and then in the world at large. Becker’s synthesis and its derived field of empirical research provided a nuanced understanding that resonated with her experiences immediately.

Lyla received a B.A. in psychology with a minor in French from Kalamazoo College. She worked as a research assistant in cognitive and social psychology labs, completing her senior thesis in Terror Management Theory (TMT). After college, she lived in France for two years, which had a formative impact and furthered her understanding of culture and culture-based conflict, while also allowing her to have a third-person perspective of America’s cultural worldview. Upon returning, she spent a year studying and researching TMT at the University of Arizona before joining the team here at the EBF, where she helped spread Becker’s ideas to broader audiences.

Cory Foster, Graphic Designer, Web Developer

Cory joined the EBF in 2009, having first become aware of Ernest Becker through Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. As a devout hypochondriac and neurotic, Cory found much to identify with Allen’s character in the film, and more to gain from a growing familiarity with Becker’s work.

As the graphic designer for the EBF, Cory provided sharp, clean work with an eye toward strong visual recognition. He also worked to keep the EBF running behind the scenes, performing a wide variety of tasks.

Cory has a deep passion for the arts, particularly music and film. He is a musician and songwriter, and spends his spare time writing and recording his compositions. He holds an AAS in Design from Seattle Central Creative Academy.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Erika Campbell, Ed.D, MA, LMHC, President

Erika Campbell was the Resident Services Director at Mirabella Seattle, a continuing care retirement community in Downtown Seattle. Erika received her doctorate in Education from Seattle University, and her MA in Mental Health Counseling from Antioch University Seattle. Erika specialized in providing community education and support of memory care, promoting creative therapies for enhancing life expression, and exploring family dynamics and advocacy at the end of life. Erika was a contributing member of the Ernest Becker Foundation since 2004, and brought her knowledge of meaning, purpose, and motivation through a Becker lens to her therapeutic practice.

Merlyn Mowrey, Ph.D., Vice-President

Merlyn Mowrey taught Social Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Central Michigan University (CMU) for 30 years, retiring in 2018 as professor emerita. She first learned of Becker during her Ph.D. program at Temple University and as she continued her exploration of his ideas, she incorporated them into her research and her teaching. At CMU, Becker’s ideas enriched her courses on violence, religion, death and dying, racism, and sexism. In 2000, she came to Seattle for a weekend of presentations and over the years, she presented numerous papers at EBF conferences, applying Becker’s ideas to topics such as the danger and promise of heroism, sexism, male privilege, nature and the environment, and myth making. She participated in several EBF projects, including the documentary Flight from Death, the “Death Anxiety in Political Messaging” project, and she hosted two Becker/TMT conferences at CMU in 2003 and 2008. She was the author of The Religious Hero and the Escape From Evil: A Feminist Challenge to Ernest Becker’s Religious Mystification.

Dan Dunn, M.B.A., Treasurer

Dan Dunn joined the EBF board in 2007. After working in management consulting and investment banking early in his career, Dan spent 15 years as a partner investing in growth businesses at a large San Francisco-based hedge fund. He then began teaching economics and history at the high school level. Dan has an AB in Economics and an MBA from Stanford University. He enjoys coaching, travelling, and fly fishing.

Peter Helm, Ph.D., Member

Peter Helm joined the EBF Board while a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Missouri in the department of Psychological Sciences. He was first introduced to Becker’s work and Terror Management Theory (TMT) as an undergraduate at the University of Vermont and was fascinated by how fundamental these ideas were to understanding the human experience. Pursuing these interests, he joined a social psychology graduate program with Dr. Jeff Greenberg at the University of Arizona focusing on experimental existential psychology and continues to pursue these research directions today. His research applies Terror Management Theory to health-related outcomes and policy, and understanding the antecedents and consequences of existential isolation.

Mandy Benoualid, Member

Mandy Benoualid joined the EBF Board while the President and co-founder of Keeper, and the co-founder and Editor of TalkDeath. Since 2013, Mandy developed Keeper Memorials, a collaborative online memorial platform for families, which includes a suite of digital memorialization tools for deathcare professionals. Mandy works with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration on the Veterans Legacy Memorial project, which memorializes Millions of American Veterans. Her work extends to editing the consumer-focused death positive blog, TalkDeath.com, interviewing deathcare professionals for the web series #TalkDeath, as well as attending and speaking at Death Cafes, and funeral and cemetery conferences. Mandy first came across Becker’s The Denial of Death while writing about the stigma and fears surrounding death in the West. It has since become a permanent resident of her nightstand and continues to influence her work and outlook on life. Mandy has served on numerous nonprofit boards including Leave Out Violence, The International Memorialization Suppliers Association, and the PBS Documentary, Speaking Grief.

Lindsey Harvell-Bowman, Ph.D., Member

Lindsey Harvell-Bowman joined the EBF Board while an Associate Professor at James Madison University and director of the Terror Management Lab there. She was first introduced to Becker’s work when she was learning about Terror Management Theory (TMT) in her graduate program at the University of Oklahoma after her advisor passed away and her life was forever changed by his ideas. Her dissertation investigated the persuasive impact of using mortality salience in political messaging. Since then, she has spent the past decade investigating issues surrounding TMT and Communication within a social psychological framework. Her grant-funded work has been used to investigate the existential meaning when faced with death among populations experiencing suicidal ideation with a history of attempts. She is the author of two interdisciplinary books focusing on TMT. Lindsey helped the EBF to create a communications guide as part of our MAP project, and you can find her interviewed on the topic of Covid-19 as a panelist on our Covid-19 Webinar, moderator, and interviewee several EBF webinars. Lindsey is a member of the Osage Nation. In her free time, you can find Lindsey at her beach home, watching the waves and contemplating Becker’s ideas with her dogs and husband.

Greg Sammis, M.A., Member

Greg Sammis has been working as a learning and development specialist focused on helping people gain the skills and insights necessary to live lives of purpose and meaning since 1998. When Greg first read Becker’s Denial Of Death, he began incorporating the ideas of Ernest Becker into this work, encouraging his students and participants to use their mortality as a lens to discover their values and pursue their goals. Greg was a co-facilitator and co-developer of our introductory Mortality Awareness Preparedness Project workshops. Greg holds two masters degrees, in Experiential Education and Organization Development. He is also an accomplished musician, enjoying both performance and recording.

Matthew Valdespino, Member

Matthew Valdespino joined the EBF Board while earning his PsyD in Clinical Psychology from the Graduate School for Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. He was first introduced to Ernest Becker’s work through Denial of Death, which helped ignite his interest in human relationships as an essential means of navigating the anxieties of life and death. He followed this passion into psychiatric social work, where he worked facilitating a non-clinical therapeutic community for individuals with severe mental illness in Bellevue, Washington. He is interested in working with individuals with Severe Mental Illness, particularly those in correctional settings, and how applying Terror Management Theory and clinical insights into existential isolation can improve treatment in these settings.