By Thomas A. Parmalee
When Cole Imperi boarded one of the last flights out of New York City in March 2020, she didn’t know she was heading home to launch a movement – one that includes home care professionals.
At the time, she was deep into a doctoral program, juggling her work as a consultant for film and television productions — advising on the accuracy of how death and grief were portrayed on screen. Then the world shut down.
“I got back home and said to myself, ‘I’m not going anywhere for a while. What can I do to help?’” Imperi recalled. “So, I offered to host a free Zoom lecture on how to respond to crisis and collective grief from a thanatological perspective.”
She made a quick post on Instagram, expecting maybe a dozen people to show up. “I didn’t even have makeup on,” she laughed. “But it went viral overnight.”
That first online session drew hundreds of participants, sparking what would become the School of American Thanatology, which she founded in March 2020. What began as an impromptu act of service during the pandemic has grown into a respected global institution with students in more than 30 countries — with many of the attendees coming from the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The school has quickly gained a reputation for bridging the gap between funeral service, health care institutions and the public conversation about death, with home care professionals “very much in the mix,” she said.
“Some of our students have retired from a professional career like nursing and end up working part time in the home care field,” she said. “They take thanatology classes to be better equipped to navigate death, but most importantly grief, especially shadowlosses.”
What exactly is “shadowloss?”
It’s the death of something – not someone, she explained.
“Common shadowlosses that people grieve include a medical diagnosis, a loss of independence, or even changes in a family member’s ability to function or care for themselves,” she said. “We also have a lot of students who went through a caregiver experience, and found a vein of curiosity about the experience. Caregiving is in some ways complex because it melds your physical environment, your daily routine, ideas about quality of life, spirituality and more. There’s a lot that thanatology can shine a light on for any caregiver, both in the caregiving they do for themselves, and for others.”
Her TED Talk on shadowloss has resonated widely, and her work was featured in the Netflix docuseries The Future Of in the episode “Life After Death.”
A Global Classroom Born from Crisis
Thanatology — the study of death, dying, grief, and loss — may sound academic, but Imperi, who is the author of “A Guide to Grief,” has made it accessible and deeply practical. In addition to caregivers, her students include licensed funeral directors and embalmers, physicians, social workers and chaplains.
She’s hoping to forge a stronger bond with home care professionals since they so often navigate feelings of loss because of their work – and help families do the same.
“Home care professionals can deepen their scientific knowledge of grief, as well as death itself,” she said. “As an example, we now know a lot more about grief than we did even 20 years ago. It used to be taught that grief is an emotion, but grief itself is not an emotion. You cannot feel grief. You can feel sad, which is a part of grief. You can feel happy, which is a part of grief. But grief is not a feeling. Grief is actually a response to loss, and that response includes symptoms across six categories. A griever can experience physical symptoms, social, spiritual, emotional, behavioral and cognitive symptoms. And your unique expression of grief will change a bit with each loss you experience in life! So, this is what I mean—there’s so much new information about grief, death, dying, and loss out there, and it’s really fulfilling to be able to spend time getting all your facts up to date.”
Studying thanatology also provides home care professionals a chance to deepen their own understanding of personal losses they’ve experienced, as well as their own grief experience, she said. “It can really have a transformative effect on a person,” she said.
She added, “The final thing I’ll share is something I talk a lot about in my classes. The whole point behind taking a training, gaining more education, or listening when others share their experience is so we can become better at whatever our jobs are. Continuing to learn reduces the chance of inadvertently causing harm to others, because you don’t know what you don’t know!”
The interdisciplinary model of the School of American Thanatology is something that has resonated with caregivers.
Why Thanatology Matters to Home Care
Before founding the school, Imperi spent years traveling across the United States and Canada teaching for a cremation arranger program and consulting for funeral homes. She also served as a mortuary college professor, crematory operator, grief group leader, hospice volunteer and board president of a historic cemetery and arboretum.
For home care professionals, thanatology offers a fresh lens through which to view the work they already do every day. There is enormous opportunity in connecting these two worlds, Imperi said.
“A rewarding part of working with home care professionals is having the chance to connect their own relationship to caregiving, their own lived experiences they’ve had with it in their families, to the caregiving work they are doing professionally,” she said. “We can become better home care professionals when we are better at our own personal caregiving, just like we can become better at caring for ourselves when we take what we learned and experienced professionally and apply to our own lives. It’s really rewarding to see the blend of personal and professional experiences, with the art and the science of home care being given through so many of life’s transitions.”
She’s also started to see a new connection emerging between the home care profession and the entire end-of-life field, which includes death doulas and death companions.
“Many death companions are looking for ways to be able to companion people facing end of life, or who are navigating grief, and are finding meaningful professional work by entering the home care field,” she said. “Working in home care also provides reliable income while the death doula field is still emerging and requires an entrepreneurial mindset. They are able to specialize in clients navigating grief and loss, are not uncomfortable with end-of-life related issues and are able to apply their death companioning skills in a meaningful way – all while earning a consistent income.”
In the home care field, where it is a constant battle to find reliable employees, that is a keen insight.
From Viral Idea to Institutional Partner
The growth of the School of American Thanatology was rapid, but its credibility deepened even further in 2025, when it became the exclusive home of the Integrative Thanatology: Death Education Counselor program. The program was originally created by the Art of Dying Institute, a nonprofit that has been a cornerstone of public-facing death education for three decades. Imperi is an alumna of the program, which is a separate, nonprofit entity distinct from the School of American Thanatology.
“There have always been funeral directors that have been teaching faculty in the program, which is one of the reasons I enrolled in it myself 10 years ago,” she said. “You learn thanatology from funeral directors, licensed clinical mental health professionals, physicians and people doing cutting-edge work.”
She noted, “The Art of Dying Institute represents what I think as the ‘second wave’ of modern death education. The first wave came from people like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Jessica Mitford — subject matter experts who weren’t afraid to talk to the public about death and dying.”
The second wave, beginning in the 1990s, was centered in New York City and led by the Art of Dying Institute, she said. “Its first conference in 1994 brought nearly a thousand people together in Manhattan to talk openly about death, grief, and spirituality. It was groundbreaking,” she said.
Imperi herself completed the Integrative Thanatology program nearly a decade ago. “To now be entrusted with housing and co-leading that same credential feels like a full-circle moment,” she said.
The partnership ensures that both organizations remain actively involved in curriculum development, faculty selection and continuing education approvals.
Expanding the Field — And Inviting Home Care In
Imperi is continuing to innovate.
A hybrid Integrative thanatology program will launch in 2027, with in-person sessions planned for Los Angeles, New York City or Cincinnati.
“We’ve been online since the start, but we’re ready to bring people together physically again,” she said. “There’s something about sitting in the same room — sharing space, stories, and silence—that no online platform can replicate.”
Today, Imperi’s influence extends far beyond the classroom. She’s an award-winning author, TED speaker, chaplain, and death worker, with a new book slated for release in 2027 from Penguin Random House.
But no matter how far her reach grows, Imperi stays grounded in her respect for home care professionals and their allies working in fields that revolve around the end of life.
As the School of American Thanatology prepares for its next phase, Imperi’s vision is clear: to elevate home care as a key audience of thanatology.
“I want the home care field to be recognized as the essential bridge it already is — between health care, psychology, spirituality and community,” she said.
Learn More:
To explore educational programs or inquire about teaching opportunities, visit schoolofamericanthanatology.com or reach Cole Imperi directly at mailto:cole@americanthanatology.com.
