Julie Exline

Julie Exline, Ph.D.

Research Director and Bonner-Lowry Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences

UVA Division of Perceptual Studies

Julie’s main research interests include:

• Extraordinary experiences around the boundary of life and death, including (but not limited to):
  • near-death experiences
  • after-death communications
  • children who report memories of past lives
  • entity encounters and “otherworldly” aspects of psychedelic experiences
• Psychological and social implications of extraordinary experiences and afterlife-related beliefs, including consequences for:
  • Existential worldviews and core beliefs
  • Spiritual and religious beliefs, including struggles, particularly in how extraordinary experiences might resolve certain spiritual struggles while creating others
  • Mental health
  • Close relationships
  • Social attitudes and behaviors (e.g., political polarization; responses to intergroup conflict; environmental attitudes)
  • Clinical care (e.g., how medical and mental health professionals frame and respond to accounts of extraordinary experiences)

Julie also has a variety of ongoing, collaborative projects on topics related to supernatural (or nonmaterial) beliefs and attributions, spiritual struggles and spiritual yearning, and virtues such as forgiveness and love.

Julie graduated from the University of Michigan in 1987 with a B. S. in Computer Science. After studying Computer Science as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan and working as a database programmer for several years, Julie went back to school at Stony Brook University and earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1997 (advisor: Dr. Marci Lobel, a social/health psychologist). After postdoctoral work in social psychology with Dr. Roy Baumeister, she joined the Clinical Psychology faculty at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in 2000. During her time at CWRU, Julie studied a variety of topics on the interface between clinical, social, and personality psychology, with an emphasis on existentially-focused topics (e.g., spiritual struggles; supernatural attributions) and virtues (e.g., forgiveness; gratitude; love).

A licensed psychologist, Julie has also been certified as a spiritual director through the Ignatian Spirituality Institute at John Carroll University. She is a Past President of the Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (American Psychological Association’s Division 36) and has received the Margaret Gorman Early Career Award, the Virginia Sexton Mentoring Award, and the William James Award from that group.

After 25 years on the Psychological Sciences faculty at CWRU, Julie joined DOPS as the Bonner-Lowry Professor and Research Director in July 2025. She is delighted to join a team of researchers who specialize in the study of extraordinary experiences.