Joseph W. Kovach, PhD, always felt a calling to help others. Initially desiring to be a priest, he took a psychology course and ultimately decided to pursue that path instead. Earning a Bachelor of Arts in speech from St. Joseph’s College in 1969, he then received a Master of Arts in psychology from Roosevelt University in 1974, and Doctor of Philosophy from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1981. Soon thereafter, he completed a pre-doctoral internship at the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center between 1983 and 1984 before obtaining a Doctor of Psychology in clinical psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in 1986. He concluded his career that year, completing an internship in school psychology in Park Forest-Chicago Heights School District #163 in Illinois.
Since 1969, Dr. Kovach has been the president of Joseph W. Kovach and Associates Ltd. A renowned educator, administrator, researcher, consultant, and international expert, he has served as department head and full professor at the Calumet College of St. Joseph since 1984, having previously taught at Purdue University Northwest, Loyola University Health System, and South Suburban College. He also represented the faculty on the board of trustees of the Calumet College of St. Joseph for 15 years and developed more than 10 discipline areas, including a graduate program in psychology. Since 2000, he has also taught at the Northwest Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and worked with state and local police and sheriff’s departments regarding trauma intervention, crisis counseling, death notification, and stress management.
Dr. Kovach has further conducted research in the neurology department of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. To share his breadth of knowledge, he co-authored a series of research papers predicting at-risk and violent behaviors, and his academic papers have been published at the University of Oxford and in Eastern Europe. In the latter quarter of his career, he presented papers before the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences. In recognition of his prestige in the industry, he was named Distinguished Alumni of the Year by The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in 2015.
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