Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2025, Educational Studies

This hermeneutic phenomenological study explored and described Kyrgyz international students' lived experiences of receiving social support in the United States. Students from Kyrgyzstan face many psychological and acculturation stressors when adjusting to American life, and Kyrgyz culture places a high value on social relationships and exchanges of support to ensure survival through difficult periods. Social support is widely recognized to buffer against stress and can serve an important role in stabilizing international students through the study abroad experience. In this study, Van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenological approach was utilized to elicit narratives of receiving social support from Kyrgyz international students studying at one midwestern U.S. university. Van Manen's reflective writing and hermeneutic follow-up interviewing techniques were used for analysis, and Relational Cultural Theory provided a conceptual lens for understanding the role of mutuality in students' social support experiences. The four thematic findings of the study uncovered that social support provides relational, temporal, spatial, and corporeal stability as students navigate acculturation through the following strategies: Seeing Self-in-Other, Forming Family-like Bonds through Reciprocity, Utilizing Connections as Sources of Effective Guidance, and Proximity and Shared Activities Improve One's Emotional State. The findings indicate that empathy, social comparison, and reciprocity allow this population to gain self- and social knowledge, developing their identities, goals, and relational bonds through social support. Kyrgyz students in this study demonstrated preferences for informational aid from trustworthy sources and physical proximity to support givers, even when support was implicit during social companionship. Through social support, Kyrgyz students increased their awareness of and connection to their local community, which strengthened their well-being and optimism about hu (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

Amid the current climate crisis and the scientific consensus on its anthropogenic causes, one task left to the humanities and social sciences is to understand why we humans have failed to effectively act on addressing the issue. I intend to show how the work of Edmund Husserl and Bruno Latour is especially relevant to this topic, bringing their ideas to bear on questions of the climate crisis and the lack of faith in science seen in certain populations in America. I will argue that the crisis of the sciences which Husserl identifies in his last work highlights the Modernist roots of our situation where we separate ourselves from nature, which sheds light on our lack of action. I will augment this analysis with Latour's studies of science and climate change, as well as work done on the phenomenon of lack of faith in science in America, to help furnish a better understanding of the global predicament we are in.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Leadership and Change

The United States continues to experience unprecedented deaths related to the opioid epidemic. Efforts to address the epidemic remain hampered by war-on-drugs policies that stigmatize people who use drugs and create barriers to accessing evidence-based treatments, particularly methadone maintenance treatments (MMT). Despite 50 years of research regarding MMT, it remains highly regulated, and arguably the most stigmatized treatment. The punitive regulatory structure of MMT remained unchanged until emergency waivers were initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study used an exploratory, critical phenomenological approach to examine the intersection of culture and regulation on the lived experiences of 26 addiction counselors who provide treatment for opioid use disorder employing MMT. The phenomenon is examined through lenses of structural competency, cultural healthcare capital, structural racism, and self-determination theories. Using individual interviews, the study investigated whether counselors perceived, conveyed, or enacted stigma in treating those receiving MMT. The study explored whether the pandemic-era regulatory changes shifted counselors' perceptions of the treatment. Findings indicated that counselors enacted and mitigated stigma, two-thirds expressed moderate to high levels of stigma. Counselors perceived and enacted stigma by expressing frustrations regarding programs that embraced harm reduction strategies fearing approaches enabled symptomatic behaviors. They also expressed frustrations with patients' symptomatic behavior as reflected in paternalistic attitudes and feeling compelled to surveil patients' behaviors. A number of factors aligned with counselors' stigmatizing beliefs and attitudes: their pre-career negative experiences with methadone, personal abstinence-based recovery, recovery- oriented training, and/or their lack of exposure to information about the origins of the methadone regulatory structure. Stigmatization was enacted through (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Leadership and Change

This study explored the experiences of African American mental health clinicians' during the intersecting crises of the Black mental health crisis, the highly publicized racial tension tied to extrajudicial violence and over-policing of Black Americans, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic started a global crisis that affected millions of people's physical and mental health and overall well-being. Shared trauma explores the duality of mental health clinicians' personal and professional experiences. Grounded in critical race theory and models of trauma, this study explores Black mental health clinicians' lived experiences and lessons. This is an interpretive phenomenological study with narrative interviews of 10 mental health clinicians who provided services to at least 50% Black clientele before the advent of COVID-19. The study explored how Black mental health clinicians providing mental health care fared, personally and professionally, during COVID-19 and with racial upheaval: How did they adapt their lives and practices? What did they learn personally and professionally during these crises? Data were collected in individual qualitative interviews and analyzed using Saldana's first-cycle and second-cycle thematic coding model. Themes that emerged were (a) anxiety and fear regarding the unknown of COVID-19; (b) anger towards the continued racism and over-policing and killing of the Black community; (c) the importance physical activity and therapy as a clinician as means of self-care (d) connection to others to help with emotional support and the isolation of COVID-19; (e) transitioning to telehealth from in-office clinical services; (f) increase in demand of services, and (g) increase in demand for the expertise of Black clinicians, specifically. Understanding the lived experiences of Black mental health clinicians during these crises informs future practices of clinicians by teaching how to optimize health and well-being for self-care and not (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, EDU Policy and Leadership

The first objective of this phenomenological research project was to interrogate how fictive kin exists as social capital and functions as a part of the Black collegiate experience at Predominately White Institutions (PWI). The second objective was to demonstrate fictive kin as a sustained African tradition and a phenomenon that continues to occur on the campuses of PWIs (Mutisya & Ross, 2005). The third objective was to illuminate the explicit and implicit connection shared by fictive kin, social capital, and persistence of Black students at PWIs. Coleman's (1988) interpretation of social capital theory was used in partnership with Portes' social capital functions (1998). Additionally, I utilized Asante's (2003) theory of Afrocentricity, which seeks to challenge Eurocentric standards as normative for those of African descent and promotes knowledge and pride in African customs and traditions for Black people throughout the African Diaspora. The research questions that guided this study were: 1) In what way(s) does/have fictive kinships aided in helping African American students remain enrolled at PWIs? 2) What is it like for Black collegians enrolled in a PWI to participate/experience fictive kin? 3) What meaning do Black college students ascribe to fictive kin? Data collection included an in-depth semi-structured interview with a sample of eight participants. Data explicitation included four readings of the data corpus to elicit the essence of the phenomenon. The findings demonstrated that fictive kin acted as social capital in three ways: lack of representation as motivation, community of support, and cultural reproductions in institutional settings. Their experiences were hallmarked by consistent presence, trusted interaction, and their fictive kin members. As a result of their experiences, the significance of fictive kin was captured in African Group Interest and social debt.

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2019, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

When an actor plays a character in a film, they try to connect with the emotions and behavioral patterns of the scripted character. There is an absence of literature regarding how a role influences an actor's life before, during, and after film production. This study examined how acting roles might influence an actor during times on set shooting a movie or television series as well as their personal life after the filming is finished. Additionally the study considered the psychological impact of embodying a role, and whether or not an actor ever has the feeling that the performed character has independent agency over the actor. Blurred lines between a fictitious acting role, character embodiment, and an actor's on and off-screen realities were explored during this investigation. Blurred lines were examined using a phenomenological paradigm, which encompassed interviews with six Screen Actors Guild (SAG) members about their own personal experiences living within a character. The outcome of this research suggested that actors are often emotionally and behaviorally influenced by roles affecting their daily lives and occasionally their romantic relationships. The participants also reported having experienced the effects of the illusion of a character's independent agency while playing particular roles. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Physics

The particle nature of dark matter is a compelling mystery in physics. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are a well motivated hypothesis for the dark matter particle, and supersymmetric (SUSY) theories contain natural candidates. WIMP annihilation into Standard Model particles provides key constraints on properties of the dark matter and therefore on the large SUSY parameter space. Resonances associated with bound states of WIMPs can be important, because annihilation of WIMPs in bound states can increase the overall annihilation rate, thus possibly strengthening existing constraints on dark matter models. Orders-of-magnitude "Sommerfeld enhancements" to annihilation rates can arise near a sequence of TeV-scale critical values of the WIMP mass where there is a zero-energy S-wave resonance at the WIMP-pair scattering threshold. Close to these critical values, the low-energy behavior of the WIMPs can be described by a zero-range effective field theory (ZREFT) in which they interact nonperturbatively through contact interactions and through Coulomb interactions. In this thesis, we develop the ZREFT for a specific dark matter model: the weak-isospin triplet, hypercharge singlet 'wino' from supersymmetry. We first develop the framework of ZREFT for the simple case where the winos only have short-range weak interactions and do not pair-annihilate. The parameters of ZREFT are determined by matching the analytic wino-wino scattering amplitudes of ZREFT with scattering amplitudes calculated numerically by solving the Schrodinger equation for winos interacting through a potential due to the exchange of weak gauge bosons. ZREFT at leading order in the power counting gives a good description of the two-body observables, and the description can be systematically improved by going to next-to-leading order. The power of ZREFT is illustrated by computing the bound-state formation rate in the S-wave collision of two winos with two soft photons emitted. We next introduc (open full item for complete abstract)

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2016, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

This phenomenological study was conducted to examine the ways that individuals experience massively multiplayer online games, and the interaction between online and offline identities. Ten members of the EVE Online community were interviewed about their experiences of the boundaries and crossovers between offline self and online character. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed for consistent themes. Themes drawn from the data fell into three over- arching categories: the Appeal of EVE, or the player motivations and qualities of the game environment that influence player investment; Self/Character Interaction, describing the ways in which online and offline identities interact; and Moral Dilemmas, in which players describe their thoughts and reactions to the moral ambiguity of EVE Online. Appeal of EVE contained the themes of Importance of Social Interaction, My Choices Matter, Algerism, and EVE Relationships are Meaningful. Self/Character Interaction contained the themes of My Character and I Are the Same, My Character and I Are Different, Parallels, Friction Between Selves, One Identity Learning From the Other, and Intersections. Moral Dilemmas contained the themes of My Prosocial Choices, Someone Else's Antisocial Choices, and Morality is Ambiguous. A final theme, not associated with any of the three categories, but present throughout all of them, was Emotional Content. These results were compared and contrasted with existing literature, and conclusions were drawn about the parallel processes between online and offline selves.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Physics

We analyze the phenomenological consequences of Yukawa unified SUSY GUTs. We begin by analyzing the threshold corrections to the bottom quark mass to understand how the SUSY breaking parameter space is constrained by low-energy data, specifically third family fermion masses. The supersymmetric spectrum of a realistic SO(10) Yukawa unified SUSY GUT model is constrained by data from Run 1 at the LHC. Specifically, lower limits are placed on the mass of the gluino in Yukawa unified SUSY GUTs by recasting dedicated searches for the gluino by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. It is found that from Run 1 data the lower limit on the gluino mass in Yukawa unified SUSY GUTs is generically ~1.2 TeV unless the gaugino spectrum is highly compressed. We explore the cosmological consequences of Yukawa unified models by connecting a Pati-Salam model to an inflationary sector. It is shown that the Yukawa matrices at the GUT scale in this model are identical to the ones obtained in the SO(10) model. The inflationary sector is described by the dynamics of subcritical F-term hybrid inflation. The predicted values for cosmological observables in this model are consistent with recent cosmological data from the Planck and BICEP/Keck collaborations. Most importantly, the model both directly identifies the scale of inflation with the GUT scale and yields a tensor-to-scalar ratio of ~0.08.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Educational Policy and Leadership

Women's center professionals, volunteers, and supporters have worked for over half a century to create opportunities for women, advance gender equity, and dismantle institutional sexism in U.S. higher education. This critical phenomenological study explores how women's center professionals negotiate their racial and ethnic identities in their work for gender equity as well as how theory critically shapes their experiences. Two questions are explored: (a) How do women's center professionals understand their race and ethnicity related to their roles and work in women's centers? and (b) How do feminist theories inform, support, and/or fail women's center professionals as they negotiate their race and ethnicity in their work? The study is significant for its implications for feminist and antiracist practice and its exploration of the varied and complicated roles of feminist theory and intersectionality in women's and other identity-based centers.

PHD, Kent State University, 2013, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences

Within the field of school psychology there exists literature for school psychologists working with specific ethnic and linguistic groups (Frisby & Reynolds, 2005; Tomes, 2011). The Arab American population is estimated to be 3.6 million (Arab American Institute, 2012). However, there is a paucity of school psychology research on Arab American students and families (Goforth, 2011; Haboush, 2007). As active members of the special education process, school psychologists will benefit from information regarding Arab American cultural and religious beliefs about special education and disabilities. Such information will assist them in providing culturally sensitive and appropriate services to students and families. This study utilized a phenomenological qualitative approach to illuminate Arab Americans parents’ experiences with their children’s encounters with the special education process and perceptions of their children’s disabilities. Phenomenological data analysis revealed four core themes. First, parents attached significance to specific steps within the special education process and to cultural stigmas around special education and disabilities. Next, parents reflected on special education services and key relationships. Additionally, parents discussed their children’s abilities, their understandings of special education, and their advocacy work. Finally, parents reported that their goals for their children had not changed as a result of the special education process, although the goals were tailored to their children’s identified disabilities. These findings have significant implications for professionals working with Arab American students and their parents. Recommendations are made for culturally sensitive school psychology practice with Arab Americans. Suggestions are provided for further research on this important yet under-researched topic.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2025, Leadership and Change

This hermeneutic phenomenological study explores the leadership experiences of Black birth workers (BBWs), revealing critical insights into leadership dynamics within maternal healthcare. Through a theoretical framework integrating African feminism, Black feminism, and anti-racist feminism, the research examines how BBWs conceptualize and enact leadership through embodied, relational, and liberatory approaches. This study addresses a significant gap in leadership literature, particularly regarding generational knowledge and practices of BBWs, which remain understudied despite their vital role in Black maternal healthcare. This study reveals distinct leadership perspectives and methodologies through in-depth interviews with eight BBWs and a detailed interpretive analysis. The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of leadership in complex maternal healthcare settings and broaden conventional leadership models by centering the voices and practices of historically marginalized Black birth worker leaders (BBWLs). This dissertation is available in open access at (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Ed.D., Antioch University, 2025, Education

My dissertation focuses on my thesis question: How might an NGO's grassroots efforts in urban Visakhapatnam, India, propagate living justly with animals we encounter and severely Othered humans, beyond attitudes of guardianship, mitigating universalized harms to nature and society? In a transdisciplinary approach examining grassroots programs, my phenomenological study breaks down an animal advocate's assertive practices of—inclusivity and decolonialized lived norms, which persistently transcend cultural antagonisms of caste, ability, gender, sex, class, and form/species—toward creating just pluriversal multispecies communities in Visakhapatnam. Universalized urbanization across the planet has driven irreversible socio-ecological transformation marked by record ecosystem decline. Sustaining the urban via historically patriarchal and colonialized human dominion over other animals and Earth's natural resources reveals our existential disconnect with nature, including our human nature. My analysis claims phenomenologically realized premises observing real actors materializing grassroots formations of interspecies coexistence—working through nexuses of the political, economic, cultural, and religious systems of harm—in efforts toward creating self-determined, just, multispecies communities in Visakhapatnam. This attempts to bridge this gap in scholarship from within the intensities of Visakhapatnam city in urban India. Undoing normative, essentially androcentric, harm that oppresses many and despoils nature is possible. How to wrest political power and demand change-making to address biodiversity loss, food and water insecurity, and unacceptable inequities for Othered humans and animals in urban geographies has been observed and analyzed. More communities and societies applying these phenomenological realizations can help build momentum, lending to many just worlds in one pluriversal world becoming the norm. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https:/ (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2025, Antioch New England: Marriage and Family Therapy

This research explored how marriage and family therapy graduate programs awaken, develop, and teach clinical intuition. Using criterion-based sampling and snowball sampling, six licensed marriage and family therapists participated in a two-step hermeneutic phenomenological study consisting of individual semistructured interviews and a follow-up focus group. Requirements for participation were licensed marriage and family therapists who were in clinical practice, had experienced the phenomenon of clinical intuition and awakening of clinical intuition, and used clinical intuition in therapy with clients and in systemic supervision with supervisees. The research findings highlighted 14 themes: Reflection of the Experience of Clinical Intuition; Bodily Knowing, Sensing, and Self-Trust; Maturity, Wisdom, and Critical Consciousness; Integration of Theory; Relational Attunement and Connection; the Process of Supervision; Supervisors Use of Self/Parallel Process/Isomorphism; Paradigm Shift; Decolonizing Therapy, Awakening Critical Consciousness, and Attuning to Sociopolitical Factors in Relationships; Challenges; Awareness of Intuition Being Influenced by the Dominate Discourse; the Role Gender Plays; Teaching Intuition Falls Under Teaching Self of the Therapist; Clinical Intuition Is Relational, each of which support and foster the awakening, development, and teaching of clinical intuition in marriage and family therapy graduate programs. Future recommendations consist of creating a critically conscious curriculum to train supervisors how to awaken, develop, and teach clinical intuition to supervisees, and creating a conceptual framework for marriage and family therapy programs to incorporate awakening, developing, and teaching clinical intuition in their graduate programs. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu/) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Ohio University, 2025, Studio Art

This thesis investigates performance art as an interdisciplinary process-based practice, merging historical, philosophical, sociological, and technical research with embodied existence. Drawing from personal experience as a trans, non-binary artist, this body of work—presented in two final thesis shows—navigates the blurred relationship between habitual interactions and conditioned senses of self. I practice performance art as both a creative and ontological act, grasping for vulnerability, self-awareness, and mutual understanding. Incorporating frameworks of queer phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, and notation systems, this research addresses the challenges of documenting ephemeral works, valuing residual artifacts as modes for preserving and re-iterating performance art—a trace of queer existence etched in time.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2025, Social Welfare

This study explores the lived experiences of Mental Health Professionals (MHPs) during violence risk assessments in community settings. The study sought to identify if differences in training, experience, and forensic knowledge affected the approaches used by forensic and non-forensic MHPs when assessing the threat of violence. Utilizing a phenomenological qualitative approach, the research examined how MHPs elicit information, organize and prioritize that information, and ascribe meaning to the elicited information during threat assessments. Interviews were conducted with both forensic and non-forensic MHPs, analyzing their approaches to information gathering and threat assessment. The findings reveal distinct differences between forensic and non-forensic MHPs in assessing threats: forensic MHPs focused more on immediate, concrete risk indicators while non-forensic MHPs adopted a broader, narrative-based. This research contributes to the fields of mental health and threat assessment by emphasizing the role of the clinician's judgment and experience in threat assessment, offering insights for enhancing practice and policy. It advocates for training that incorporates both forensic knowledge and the nuanced understanding of non-forensic approaches, suggesting pathways for future research to further explore the interplay between structured tools and clinical judgment in assessing the risk of violence.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2025, Antioch Seattle: Counselor Education & Supervision

This qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of transracial adoptees of the global majority (BIPOC), focusing on their bicultural identity integration and its impact on mental health. During semi-structured interviews, nine participants shared their stories of navigating cultural and racial dynamics as adoptees in predominantly White adoptive families and communities. The findings revealed six core themes: (1) the Quest for Bicultural Identity Formation, (2) Cultural Integration and Adaptation, (3) Navigating Racial and Cultural Tensions, (4) the Role of Family in Cultural Integration, (5) the Importance of Community and Support Systems, and (6) Mental Health and Therapeutic Experiences, addressing the complex interplay of identity, mental health challenges, and the healing potential of culturally responsive therapy. This study underscores the need for increased cultural competency in adoptive parenting and mental health interventions to better support the unique experiences of transracial adoptees of the global majority. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).20

Ed.D., Antioch University, 2025, Education

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to observe the lived experiences of children while learning about place through a Kinship/Indigenous worldview and the impact of the experience on their love and care for place. The study unfolds from a theoretical framework at the nexus of critical theory, place-based education, and a Kinship/Indigenous worldview. The overarching question is, “Can teaching through an Original Kinship/Indigenous Worldview grow children towards connection and love for place?” Elementary students and their teacher explored one square block of the school community, illuminating a different aspect of our place daily through Kinship/Indigenous worldview Precepts (Wahinkpe Topa & Narvaez, 2022). Students constructed their knowledge of place from unseen organisms to the power systems present and developed an understanding of their impact on place. Data gathered included Natureculture (Haraway, 2003) journal notes, sketches, reflections, photovoice, and semi-structured interviews. Natureculture is a synthesis of nature and culture that recognizes their inseparability in ecological relationships that are both biophysically and socially formed (Fuentes, 2010; Haraway, 2003). Findings reveal that learning to see all elements of place/community through a Kinship/Indigenous worldview supports children in understanding interconnectedness, meaning children understand their connection to nature as a biological and cultural relatedness nurtured through connecting with all beings. Data was isolated, analyzed, and interpreted to illuminate themes giving voice to the lived experience of children learning about a place through an original kindship/Indigenous worldview and their shift to care for them. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

Reading permeates throughout all parts of the school day and one's school career, from learning to read the words on the page to utilizing knowledge of vocabulary and comprehension skills to understand what is being read. Teacher knowledge and instructional delivery directly affect student learning outcomes (Scales et al., 2018), signifying the vital role the teacher has. It is important to investigate and capture the experiences of the novice reading teacher to understand what is included in the experience of teaching reading, highlighting areas teacher educators and administrators could focus support for preservice and novice teachers. The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of the novice reading teacher, including their experience as a preservice teacher and the transition from preservice to novice teacher. Seidman's (2013) method of in-depth phenomenological interviewing was utilized within this study. This method is influenced by concepts of phenomenology, which is a qualitative approach which aims to capture the lived experience of participants related to a phenomenon (Moustakas, 1994; Vagle, 2018; van Manen, 1990; van Manen, 2014). Seidman's (2013) three-interview structure was followed, with each interview having a specific focus related to the novice reading teacher experience and the meaning of those experiences. Analysis of the data included crafting participant profiles and vignettes, as well as using a labeling process, like coding, to find similar categories and themes related to the experiences the participants shared. A reflexive process was also used by the researcher to ensure the positionality and influence of the researcher to the study was consistently being considered. Findings related to the themes of the complexity of mentorship, fluctuation of self-efficacy, and necessity to include real life examples and experiences within preservice and novice teacher learning are discussed. Recommendations for future qualitative studies ar (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

This study provides a vital contribution to the discourse on women's career trajectories by amplifying the often-overlooked experiences of women middle-level leaders. Positioned at the intersection of strategic and operational functions, these leaders play a vital role in organizations—developing and motivating employees, driving change, and serving as relationship managers and key connectors to senior leadership. Employing an interpretative phenomenological approach, this study explores the lived experiences of 15 accomplished women middle-level leaders, each with over 15 years of service across private, public, and nonprofit sectors in the United States. Grounded in relational-cultural theory (RCT), career theory, positive work relationships, and workplace learning, the findings enrich our understanding of women's leadership journeys and challenge conventional notions of career success. The study identified one overarching theme, Evolving as a Person, and three group experiential themes: A Journey of Experiences, Support is Energy, and Purpose Over Position. Participants emphasized purpose, values, and spirituality over traditional career advancement, highlighting the importance of connection and mattering, which align with RCT's growth-fostering relationships and the "five good things." This study reframes career success as a holistic concept, demonstrating that thriving in middle management can align ambition with influence and personal fulfillment. Practical insights are offered for leaders, practitioners, coaches, and organizations to support emerging and experienced leaders seeking meaningful growth, even within middle-level roles. By challenging societal narratives around career and success, this study advocates for a more inclusive and equitable workforce that values thriving at all organizational levels. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).