APAGS Officers

APAGS Chair — Ali M. Mattu, MA

Mattu is a seventh-year clinical psychology PhD student at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is in the final stages of completing his dissertation entitled, "Understanding the Developmental Course of Trichotillomania: The Roles of Onset and Age." In addition to his research, Ali provides psychotherapy as a doctoral intern at the NYU Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He is an avid photographer and dreams of one day integrating his love of psychology with photojournalism. Through the APAGS New Media Resource Guide, Mattu is creating resources that will help graduate students understand new media technologies, navigate the ethical conflicts of new media, and learn how to use these technologies to nurture their professional goals.

Past Chair, APAGS — Susan M. Wilson, MS

Wilson is a sixth-year doctoral student studying clinical psychology at Ohio University. Her current research focuses on violence in the transgender community and sexual assault risk reduction and prevention. Other areas of research and professional interest include LGBT issues, group therapy, public policy, and advocacy. Prior to serving as the APAGS Chair and Past Chair, Wilson served as the Chair for the Ohio Psychological Association of Graduate Students. In her year as APAGS Chair, Wilson focused on strengthening graduate student representation through fostering key relationships within APA and psychology related organizations, as well as developing relevant cutting edge resources for graduate students that are easy to access and use. Additionally, Wilson and the APAGS committee continue to work to create a home for science oriented students within APAGS, to advocate for issues related to the internship crisis, and to make APAGS a leader in the use of emerging technologies to promote building graduate student connections and disseminating psychological science.

Chair-Elect, APAGS — Matthew FitzGerald, MA, MS

FitzGerald is a fourth-year clinical psychology student at Loyola University Maryland. His clinical interests include mindfulness-based interventions, group therapy, the therapeutic process, and tracking treatment outcomes. For his dissertation research, FitzGerald is investigating sexual minority youths’ experience of friendship in their high school years.  Having formerly chaired the Maryland Psychological Association for Graduate Students, FitzGerald strongly believes in the power of advocacy for positive change.  During his tenure with APAGS, he hopes to get more students involved in APAGS by expanding the group's social media outreach and recruiting more campus representatives. He hopes this will allow graduate students to more powerfully advocate for solutions to the internship crisis and for increased funding for psychological science.

Member-at-Large, Membership Recruitment/Retention — Ethan Mereish, MA 

Mereish is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at Boston College. His research interests focus on examining the effects of oppression and minority stress on minority individuals’ health and identity development as well as factors that promote their resilience. He is also interested in understanding the socialization of prejudice attitudes and behaviors and factors that mitigate prejudice in various domains. Mereish is committed to providing graduate students with innovative and accessible professional development resources, and an enriching and supportive professional network. He is also committed to advocating for, recruiting, and retaining graduate students from diverse backgrounds into the field of psychology.

Member-at-Large, Diversity — Rachel Becker, MA

Becker  is a third-year counseling psychology PhD student at the University of Miami. She is currently working on several research projects that examine immigration and acculturation within a social justice framework. One project of particular interest is her work with unaccompanied immigration children. Becker’s advisor and research team have pioneered an intervention focused on increasing resilience and well-being in these detained youth. In addition to her research, Rachel provides assessments and therapy to children and families at the Mailman Child Development Center. During her time as Member-at-Large, Diversity Focus, Rachel aims to create a diversity training resource center. This site would host resources for training students in innovative research methodologies and state of the art empirically supported cultural interventions. Rachel also plans to provide more opportunities for students to highlight their own cutting edge practice and research approaches with diverse populations.

Member-at-Large, Education Focus — Gregory Wilson

Gregory Wilson is a second year doctoral student at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, Illinois. Wilson completed his undergraduate degree in 2010 in psychology and rehabilitation science at Arkansas Tech University. Currently, Wilson is a diagnostic extern at Hartgrove Hospital. His clinical interests include LGBT issues, addictions as well as marriage and family therapy. Through previous leadership experience in both Arkansas and Illinois, Wilson has demonstrated an active role in addressing the unique training needs of psychology students. During his time as Member-at-Large, Education Focus, Wilson aims to advance the field of psychology through integrating the concepts of social responsibility and social justice into graduate-level training. Furthermore, he wishes to empower students to become further involved in shaping their training processes in address training issues such as the internship crisis.

Member-at-Large, Research/Academic — Lyra Stein, MS

Stein is a sixth-year doctoral student in the social psychology department at Rutgers University. Her interests include understanding and reducing boredom in the workplace. She is currently developing a construct which can be used for selection and assessment in addition to applying interventions which can alleviate boredom based on an individual’s unique personality profile. As Member-at-Large Research/Academic Focus, she will focus on not just advocating for science oriented issues, but bridging the gap between the research and practice students within APAGS. She will collaborate with groups within APA and APAGS to increase the awareness of psychology as a science and to bring focus to the issues that are important to students in psychological science. Some of these issues include acknowledgement of psychology as a STEM science, increased awareness of psychological research, visibility of funding opportunities within psychological science and advocacy for increased funding opportunities.

Member-at-Large, Practice — Shanda Wells, PsyD

Wells is a recent graduate from Midwestern University. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Access Community Health Centers in Madison, Wisconsin. Her clinical and research interests lie in collaborative primary care, underserved populations, pediatric obesity, influence of families, cultural differences in primary care, and the effects of trauma on children and adults. Wells strives to keep students aware and informed of up and coming practice areas in psychology such as collaborative health care and prescription privileges. While at APAGS, she has advocated for students and practice related issues on Capitol Hill and in her own district; she remains active in disseminating information through social media new technologies; and she labors to ameliorate the internship crisis.

Member-at-Large, Communications Focus — Joshua G. Kellison, MA

Kellison is entering his fifth year in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Arizona State University with an emphasis on children and families. He is currently collecting data for his integrative mixed-methods dissertation study investigating antigay discrimination coping and parenting strategies used by gay and lesbian parents in the long-term hope of using these data to create a culturally relevant parenting intervention. For the past two years he has been the Chair of the Health Initiatives Task Force for Division 44 of the APA, whose collaborative work with other national LGBT health organizations has helped to include LGBT health concerns in the US Department of Health’s Healthy People 2020. He has also been an active member on APAGS’ Committee on LGBT Concerns. Kellison plans to ensure successful and transparent communications within the diverse community of psychology graduate students.  He also seeks to fulfill the following long-term goals: 1) Partner with other national organizations to recruit new APA student affiliates and to identify graduate student areas of interest; 2) Expand access and communication between APA divisions; 3) Increase visibility and communication with our members and potential members.