D. Michael Brown

Where the road is right now

I am a pre-doctoral psychology student preparing for clinical psychology doctoral applications in the December 2026 cycle. My focus is psycho-oncology — the psychological experience of cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers — building toward a bilingual practice (English, Spanish, Portuguese) in Short Hills, New Jersey under The Elysian Group.

Currently enrolled at Thomas Edison State University (TESU), accepted April 21, 2026 with ninety-plus credits transferred from Sophia Learning and CLEP. Bachelor of Arts in Psychology anticipated Spring 2027. GED Math test scheduled for May 11, 2026 — the last credential standing between me and full TESU enrollment. ACL/meniscus surgery scheduled May 19, 2026, the day after.

The miles already walked

Thirty-three years inside corporate audiovisual and IT systems integration. I shipped enterprise installations for Coca-Cola (Office of the Vice President, Atlanta HQ), Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (multi-year federal contractor), Kennesaw State, Emory, the EPA, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Bank South, and dozens of other clients across federal, healthcare, education, municipal, and Fortune 500 environments. Held thirty-five active or completed certifications, including industry installer/programmer Tech Level Three, Biamp TesiraFORTÉ BEE, Audinate Dante, Extron AV Associate, Barco UniSee Specialist, and the CTTV Certified Technician 1-8 ladder.

Across fifty-plus deployments, the recurring lesson was that outcomes were determined by leadership, change management, and how organizations integrated new tools — not by the technology itself. That observation is the bridge that eventually carried me into clinical psychology.

Music — the road that has run alongside

I have been a working musician for more than forty years. Self-taught piano from age twelve. Atlanta club circuit, regional touring, studio session work. For most of the 2000s and 2010s I was playing five to six nights a week alongside the daytime AV/IT career. Still playing. Still recording. The music has always run parallel to whatever else I was doing — and it still does.

Why this turn in the road

I have been living inside the question for a decade. I was diagnosed with Polycythemia Vera (a myeloproliferative blood cancer) in 2016. I lost my partner of eight years, Gloria, to breast cancer in 2013 — a six-and-a-half-year battle through second-round metastatic disease that ultimately progressed to bone. My current wife, Beth, is a breast cancer survivor whose treatment included autologous immunotherapy. What I lived through with Gloria, and what Beth and I navigate now, is the kind of experience psycho-oncology was built to address. The work I want to spend my career on is helping that field's mission reach further — into bilingual communities of northern New Jersey, into families who wouldn't otherwise find their way to it.

The bilingual focus reflects a clinical reality of northern New Jersey: substantial Hispanic, Brazilian-Portuguese, and Asian-American communities are underserved by English-only psycho-oncology services.

What's up ahead

Doctoral applications December 2026. Doctoral program 2027–2031 — four years, then the climb continues into supervised practice. Practice opens 2031 alongside the supervised hours phase. The structure is being built piece by piece. The mountain is named. The route is being mapped one section at a time.

"The mountain is named. The route is mapped."