How memorial websites impact grief

I’m a PhD candidate in Medical Anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco in the United States. My dissertation research explores the ways that digital technologies such as memorialization websites impact the way that people grieve. I’m particularly interested in how these technologies might be changing people’s relationships to their dead loved ones, perhaps allowing a persistent intimacy or an enduring bond between the living and the dead.

I’m currently recruiting participants who frequently visit a loved one’s online memorial, or for whom the online memorial has a special importance. Participation involves an interview by phone or Skype. All responses will be confidential and all identifying information will be removed. The research project has been approved by the Committee on Human Research at the University of California, San Francisco.

For more information or if you would like to participate, please contact me at

molly mo.hales@berkeley.edu.