Pamela Ebstyne King

Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King joined Fuller Theological Seminary as Assistant Professor of Marital and Family Studies in 2008, after serving in the School of Psychology for eight years as Adjunct and Research Professor. She was installed in 2014 with a professorship named for her mentor, Peter L. Benson, and in 2021 she was promoted to the position of Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science. Dr. King is the Executive Director of the Thrive Center for Human Development.

Dr. King’s primary academic interests are applied research at the intersection of human thriving and spiritual development. She is passionate about understanding what individual strengths and environments enable humans to thrive and become all God created them to be. She holds particular interest in understanding the role of faith, spirituality, and religion in this process. To this end she has led in building an empirical field of study of religious and spiritual development within developmental psychology that provides a psychological scientific perspective of spiritual formation.

Her current research includes studies that examine determinants of human thriving, and particularly she examines the roles spirituality and virtues play in promoting individual and communal flourishing. She has extensively studied and written on conceptualizations of thriving and positive youth development. Her work on telos is noted to provide an interdisciplinary framework for human thriving and flourishing from different philosophical, theological, and cultural perspectives and to provide a structure for understanding practical concepts like purpose, vocation, and joy. Her work combines theology, empirical research, and community engagement to further understand what contexts and settings enable people to thrive. She has conducted research funded by Biologos Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, and Tyndale House. 

Dr. King is coauthor of The Reciprocating Self: Human Development in Theological Perspective and Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Theology & Human Flourishing, coeditor of The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, and coauthor of the inaugural chapter on research on religious and spiritual development in the seventh edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science. She has served on the editorial boards of Developmental Psychology, Journal of Positive Psychology, Applied Developmental Science, the Encyclopedia of Applied Developmental Science, and the Encyclopedia of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. She has also published articles in the Journal on Adolescent Research, Journal of Early Adolescence, New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, and Journal of Psychology and Christianity. King is a member of the Society for Research on Adolescents, Society for Research on Child Development, and Division 36 of the American Psychological Association.

In addition to her studies at Fuller, Dr. King completed her undergraduate studies at Stanford University and a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford’s Center on Adolescence; she was a visiting scholar under the divinity faculty at Cambridge University. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she has led high school and college ministries and regularly speaks, preaches, and consults for various community organizations and churches. She lives in Pasadena with her husband and three children.

+ View a list of her current publications and speaking engagements.