Dr. Jack Gatti Hilton is an Assistant Professor of Social Work in the Master of Social Work program at Eastern University. He is the founder and creator of the P.A.T.H. Model® (Presence, Alignment, Truth, Healing), a federally trademarked, research-informed clinical framework designed to help clinicians and clergy address mental health stigma and integrate faith into trauma-informed care. His scholarship centers on reducing mental health stigma in conservative Christian communities and building bridges between clinical practice, clergy, and congregants.

Dr. Gatti Hilton earned his Doctor of Social Work from the University of Kentucky, where his capstone comprised a systematic literature review, a conceptual paper, and an application paper on mental health stigma in conservative Christian communities. Before entering academia, he worked in television journalism and later transitioned to clinical social work. He spent several years as a clinician on an acute inpatient psychiatric unit at Northern Light Acadia Hospital in Bangor, Maine, providing crisis intervention, diagnostic assessment, and trauma-informed individual and group treatment within an interdisciplinary care team. In November 2023, he founded Greater Love Counseling, LLC, a private practice in Bangor where he is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in trauma-informed care. He has taught social work at the BSW and MSW levels, including Social Work Practice I & II, Field Placement/Seminars I–IV, and Leadership, Administration & Supervision at Indiana Wesleyan University, and Human Growth & Development at Husson University. His work has been published in the Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work.

When he’s not in the classroom or private practice, Dr. Gatti Hilton is a purple belt in ATA Taekwondo, a gamer, an archer, a golfer, and a cellist who has made his way through Suzuki Book 1. He and his wife, Kelsey, married in December 2015 and are raising three young children together, along with a menagerie of pets all named after Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters—including a Bernese Mountain Dog, a cattle dog, a French Bulldog, a tarantula, and three parrots. Fun fact: He comes from a boxing family; his uncle is Hall of Fame boxer Arturo Gatti, who was also a father figure to him growing up.