Chris M. Daley, PhD

Christine Makosky Daley, PhD is an applied medical anthropologist, mixed methodologist, and implementation scientist with a focus on innovations in community-based participatory research in marginalized communities to improve health equity. Prior to coming to Lehigh, she was at the University of Kansas Medical Center for 16 years, where she led creation of the Center for American Indian Community Health, serving as the Director for over a decade. Her research focused on reducing disparities in Indigenous communities in the United States through community interventions for healthy living, including tobacco cessation, weight control, cancer screening, improving indoor environmental health, and more. As a methodologist, she focused on numerous communities, including rural, urban safety-net, refugee, and children with medical complexity, among others. 

Since 2020, Dr. Daley’s research has begun to focus on the intersection of culture and medicine or biology as it relates to medical mysteries, including Morgellons Disease, Near-Death Experiences, spontaneous human combustion, and cases of demonic possession. She examines these from the perspectives of the patients, as well as medical providers and healers, including both allopathic providers and individuals practicing what is often called complementary and alternative medicine. In addition, her research examines the health implications of interactions with paranormal phenomena, such as ghost sickness and alien abduction. She is the co-host of Beyond the Human, a podcast dedicated to anthropological understandings of the paranormal.

Chris M. Daley, PhD is what many would call “one of those over-educated people.” She stayed in school until she was 30, picking up alphabet soup after her name. She learned a lot – enough to make a decent living as a medical school and university professor. Chris is a medical anthropologist, which means she studies things at the intersection of culture and medicine. It’s a really interesting intersection because so much of it doesn’t fit into natural explanations. That’s where paranormal, supernatural, and anomalous phenomena come in and where her fascination with it began.

Over the years, Chris has learned about things that affect our health that medicine can’t or won’t examine because the explanations are a little…out there? Many of these illnesses can be explained and treated if we look outside the medicine many of us are used to. Once she began accepting that things like ghost sickness and possession are real, her world opened up. She became fascinated by all things paranormal and started learning as much as possible.

Because she believes in learning by doing, Chris started investigating the paranormal and helping people in any way she could. She’s now just as fascinated as ever and has 30 years of experiences, evidence, and stories to confirm what she already knew to be true – the paranormal is real and people who believe in it and are affected by it aren’t crazy. Ok, maybe some are…but they’re not crazy because they believe in the paranormal.

Are you interested in bringing more academic knowledge into your investigations? Do you want to know more about cross-cultural perspectives on these phenomena? Reach out to Chris M. Daley. She’s happy to give presentations about her experiences or consult with your team. She can also help if you’re an academic researcher trying to get into this field. It’s not that easy, but it can be done. Let’s talk!