Finding Strength in Difficult Circumstances

Name: Dr. Christine Castillo

Current Status: Alumni

Graduation Year: 1998

Dr. Christine Castillo (B.A. 98) serves her community in a variety of ways. Her primary career is as a neuropsychologist at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. In this capacity, she conducts comprehensive tests to evaluate the connection between a child’s brain and his or her level of functioning. This helps physicians, schools, and most importantly families to “understand child’s relative strengths and weaknesses and plan for intervention and accommodation.”

Her secondary role is as a professor and lecturer for regional and national seminars, doctoral programs, and various school districts and psychological associations. She also teaches a course in physiological psychology to psychology students at Hope.

Dr. Castillo is constantly amazed by the resilience of children and their families dealing with difficult disorders and often the possibility of losing their children. She feels that as families deal with difficult circumstances, she is able to minister to them on a daily basis through the recognition and encouragement of their children’s strengths.

Much of her work and her ability to minister to others began and grew during her time at Hope. Dr. Castillo decided to attend PCC after receiving a number of recommendations from friends. During here time at Hope, she received guidance from several faculty and staff including Dr. Bob Leark in the psychology department and Pricilla Schubert in student affairs. Through academics and leadership experiences at Hope, Dr. Castillo developed invaluable life skills including confidence, leadership, sensitivity, and the necessity to balance work and play.

With the encouragement of professor and mentor Dr. Leark, Dr. Castillo continued on in her education with a doctoral program at Texas A&M where she spent several years in an array of academic and internship programs gaining her specialization as a neuropsychologist with a special emphasis on epilepsy. Even after graduation, her former Hope professors continue to be a constant source of encouragement in her career.