Shari E. Miles-Cohen, PhD

Dr. Shari E. Miles-Cohen is Senior Director, Women’s Programs Office (WPO) at the American Psychological Association (APA) and is the Staff Liaison to the Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology.  The WPO works to improve the status, health, and well-being of women psychologists and consumers of psychological services. In her role as Senior Director, Dr. Miles-Cohen staffs the Committee on Women in Psychology (CWP) and related task forces and working groups; serves as an information and referral resource on women’s issues; and develops and disseminates reports, pamphlets, and other materials addressing research, practice, and consumer concerns relevant to women’s lives.  In its current portfolio, WPO has three major projects: developing curricula on the sexualization of girls, translating post-partum depression consumer information into Spanish, French and Chinese for dissemination to the general public, and establishing a leadership institute for women psychologists.

Prior to her service at WPO, Dr. Miles-Cohen was Executive Director for The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI).  In addition, Dr. Miles-Cohen staffed SPSSI’s delegation to South Africa and co-chaired “From Desegregation to Diversity” SPSSI’s 5th biennial convention which marked the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision.
Dr. Miles-Cohen has also served as director of The Union Institute Center for Women, the African American Women’s Institute at Howard University, and the Women’s Research & Education Institute (WREI).  Her work has taken her throughout the U.S., to China, South Africa, Europe, the Newly Independent States of the Former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean to promote the interface between research and policy related to women’s issues.

As a community activist she directed a crisis intervention service for women and assisted homeless women transition to independent living.  She served as a WREI Congressional Fellow for U.S. Representative Ronald V. Dellums, where she worked on women’s issues, healthcare, and education.  She has maintained her commitment to leadership development by serving as a mentor to girls and women from various cultural, academic, and professional backgrounds.  She is a member of the boards of the National Council for Research on Women and the African American Women’s Resource Center and serves as an advisor to the Mayor of Washington, DC as a member of the DC Commission for Women.  In addition, she is a member of the APA, the Society for the Psychology of Women and its Sections on Black Women, Latinas/Hispanic Women, and Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Issues, the Society for Ethnic Minority and Cultural Psychology, the Association of Black Psychologists, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the  Society for Psychologists in Management, the International Leadership Association, and the Washington Area Women’s Foundation Washington 100.

Dr. Miles-Cohen holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy from Howard University.  Her dissertation research focused on racial and feminist identity development in African American women.  Her publications include: Resource Guide on African American Women in the United States; “Black Women in Psychology: Past, Present and Future,” with coauthor Veronica Thomas in Bringing Cultural Diversity to Feminist Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice, and The American Woman 1999-2000: A Century of Change—What’s Next? co-edited with Cynthia Costello and Anne Stone.  She recently coauthored a paper on women and mentoring and is now working on a paper addressing academic freedom and scientific integrity in the academy and government agency review bodies.