Karen Fraser Wyche, MSW, PhD

Karen Fraser Wyche, MSW, PhD, is a member of the Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology and is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a Co-Investigator of the Terrorism and Disaster Center (National Child Traumatic Stress Network) at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Wyche’s research and writings focus on understanding the role of gender, socio-cultural, and socio-economic factors in a variety of outcomes including mental and physical health, ethnic identity, and community based interventions. She has extensive experience in working with low income and minority communities in program evaluation, training of service providers, and community focused interventions.  She is senior advisor to the HIV Center of Clinical and Behavioral Studies, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University. Dr. Wyche has been a faculty member at a variety of public and private universities including Hunter College, Brown University, New York University, and University of Miami.

Dr. Wyche has held many leadership roles throughout her academic career. These include: service on the IRBs at Brown University and New York University where she also served a term as Chair; membership on boards of Women’s Studies programs, promotion and tenure committees, and search committees for faculty and deans; departmental representative to the Faculty Senate at the University of Miami; and university and external grant review committees.  Dr. Wyche is a member of several editorial boards and currently is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.  Within APA Dr. Wyche is a Fellow in the Society for the Psychology of Women (Division 35), the Society for Clinical Psychology (Division 12) and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division 9). For the Society for the Psychology of Women she served as a Council Representative and has held leadership positions in the Section on Black Women, the Mentoring Committee, and is currently Co-Chair of the Nominations and Election Committee. She is the 2009 recipient of the Sue Rosenberg Zalk award for Distinguished Service to the Society for the Psychology of Women.  In Division 12 Section IV (women) she has held various positions on the Executive Committee, and for Division 9 she was, from 1999-2002, one of the NGO representatives from that division to the United Nations.  She was a member of the APA Task Force for SES and Social Class.  Formerly she was a member of the Committee on International Relations and Chair of the Committee on Women in Psychology.