Council Elects New CIRP Members

Each year three members of the Committee on International Relations in Psychology (CIRP) end their term and three new members join the committee, elected by APA’s Council of Representatives.

For 2012, CIRP’s remaining 6 members will be joined by:

• Jean Lau Chin, EdD, Adelphi University

• Virginia Kwan, PhD, Arizona State University

• Bonnie K. Nastasi, PhD, Tulane University

The following provide short biographies of these colleagues. Please look for more detailed interviews with them in the 2012 issues of Psychology International.

Dr. Jean Lau Chin is Dean of the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University. She obtained her Education Doctorate at Columbia University Teachers College. Research interests include culturally competent service delivery systems, women's issues, Asian American mental health, and clinical training - emphasizing transference and therapist self-reflection, awareness of bias and difference, and integration of contextual factors of race, ethnicity, and gender. Teaching specializations include diversity in clinical practice and psychology, psychotherapy training and practice, and the psychology of leadership.

Dr. Chin has applied her experience in leadership roles as director of a community health center, a child guidance clinic, and as dean to the understanding of leadership. She has integrated these roles with feminism and multiculturalism to contribute to the advancement of the profession of professional psychology, and on public policy and professional issues such as health care reform, health disparities, immigration, mental health, and substance abuse. Among other leadership roles, she serves on the APA Council of Representatives, Board of Directors for the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, and as Past-President of APA Division 45 - Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues.

Dr. Virginia Kwan is an associate professor of psychology at Arizona State University. She obtained her PhD in Social/Personality Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. in Social/Cultural Psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include social-perception processes (including self-perception, intergroup perception, and perceptions of nonhuman animals), diversity and multicultural identity dynamics, cultural priming, and judgment and medical decision making.

Dr. Kwan contributed to a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Psychology, as well as a number of publications covering topics such as the presence of bias in self-perception, the power of cultural contexts on everyday judgment and decision-making, and anthropomorphism. She was identified as one of Psychological Science's Rising Stars by the American Psychological Society, and presented with the Inaugural Sage Young Scholars Award by the Foundation of Social and Personality Psychology. She also serves as an elected member at the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.

Dr. Bonnie K. Nastasi is Co-Director of the School Psychology Doctoral Program at Tulane University, and former Associate Director of the Center for Research Support at Walden University. She obtained her doctorate in School Psychology at Kent State University and has conducted applied research on culturally appropriate mental health promotion and health risk prevention (including substance abuse and sexual risk) among school-age and adult populations in the U.S. and Asia. Other research interests include the use of qualitative research methods in psychology, and promoting school psychology internationally.

Dr. Nastasi is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a Past-President of APA Division 16 - School Psychology, and serves on the Editorial Boards of School Mental Health, Indian Journal of Psychological Science (IJPS), and School Psychology Review. She is an associate at the International Institute of Child Rights & Development at the University of Victoria's Centre for Global Studies, and has developed research collaborations with scholars around the world - focusing on the globalization of school psychology and the psychological well-being of school-aged populations in India and Sri Lanka.