Former associate professor of psychology and religion
February 2026 — Drew University is mourning the passing of the Rev. Dr. Dorothy Austin, former associate professor of psychology and religion in Drew’s Theological School and Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, who served from 1991 to 2000. She died on January 14, 2026, at the age of 82.
Austin, an ordained Episcopal priest, served as Sedgwick Associate Minister at the Memorial Church of Harvard University from 1999 to 2012. She and her wife, Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies, Emerita, and Frederic Wertham Research Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society at Harvard, also served as deans of Harvard’s Lowell House.
“We here at Drew are deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Dorothy Austin,” shared Drew Theological School Dean Edwin David Aponte. “Dr. Austin continued to positively impact the Theological School long after she completed her work as Professor of the Psychology of Religion, and so we feel this loss.”
Austin earned her doctorate in theology from Harvard University. She later served as director of the Erikson Center at Cambridge Hospital and taught in Harvard’s Divinity School, Medical School, and the undergraduate concentration in religion within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
“Dorothy came from fishing folk and she could cast a net (or a spell) and draw in vibrant rainbowed life,” remembered Heather Murray Elkins, Professor Emerita of Worship, Preaching, and the Arts. “She cast the vision for Public Theology that brought the leading scholars and influencers to the Forest. She wove ties between here and her Ivy halls of Harvard. Students would follow her through the halls like a school of fish, drawn by her laughter and life force. She followed her call; a fisher for God.”
