About Mike Alvarez

Communication about mortality, marginality, and mental health is the subject of Mike Alvarez’s investigation. Having spent time in the revolving door of the mental health system, he would like to help increase public understanding of the social, cultural, relational, and communicative dimensions of human distress.

Mike was ten when his family left their comfortable lifestyle in the Philippines to move to a rough neighborhood in Jersey City. The transition proved bumpy, to say the least. After several months, Mike's father went home, leaving his mother as the family's sole support.

Instilled with a love for learning, Mike excelled at school–but a rift was opening up in his mental world. As an undergraduate at Rutgers University, he suffered from debilitating anxiety that turned into horrifying delusions and a suicide attempt. A stay in hospital was a turning point, steering him toward the study of mental health. Mike's senior thesis on the relationship between creativity and suicide won the Charles Flaherty Award and was subsequently expanded into his Master's thesis at Goddard College.

After receiving his PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mike accepted a postdoctoral appointment and then a tenure-track faculty position at the University of New Hampshire. He is now an incoming Associate Professor of Communication and teaches courses in death and dying, film and media studies, interpersonal communication, and autoethnography. He is the author/editor of numerous published and forthcoming books, including The Paradox of Suicide and Creativity (Lexington Books, 2020), Unraveling: An Autoethnography of Suicide and Renewal (Routledge, 2023), Pandemic Death Discourse (McFarland, 2025), and Suicide in Popular Media and Culture (Bristol University Press, 2026). His current book projects examine suicidal people’s use of storytelling and digital platforms to co-create meaning and community.