Carol S. Pearson
Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., D.Min., is an author and educator. She develops new theories and models with an applied practical bent, building on the work of psychiatrist C.G. Jung, psychoanalyst James Hillman, mythologist Joseph Campbell, and other depth psychologists.
She has written several very important books on the topics. In addition to such books written for the general public, Pearson has made major contributions to the fields of education, marketing and branding, organizational development, and leadership through publications.
She designed the Organizational and Team Culture Indicator, also published by CAPT, to help organizational development and human resource professionals and marketers understand organizational cultures. Kenexa, a global human resources company, bought the OTCI instrument from CAPT. IBM later acquired Kenexa and translated the instrument for global use. It is now known as the IBM Kenexa Organizational Cultural Insight Survey.
Pearson was born in Chicago in 1944, the eldest child of Thelma (Widman) and John A. Pearson. At the age of two, she moved with her family to Houston, TX, where she attended Houston public schools and later Rice University, from which she received a B.A. (1966), M.A, (1968), and Ph.D. (1970). She has one younger sibling, John Douglas Pearson. She is married to David R. Merkowitz, a political and public affairs consultant, and has two step-children, Jeffrey Merkowitz, who works at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Stephen Merkowitz, a gravitational physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a daughter, Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island, as well as six grandchildren.
Pearson began her study of archetypal theory and narrative intelligence in the English Department at Rice University, which emphasized the myth/symbol school of literary studies. Later in her career, she earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Wisdom University (2012), a graduate school originally called the University of Creation Spirituality, and now a part of Ubiquity University, that explores the progressive mystic traditions in religions throughout the world. She also holds an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Norwich University.
