Chief of Ethics
As chief of ethics at APA, Childress-Beatty provides strategic vision and leadership promoting ethics throughout the field of psychology and in society, addressing new ethical issues as society and the field of psychology evolve. She is a recognized voice on psychological and professional ethics, producing ethics resources and educational programming, presenting at national and international conferences, and consulting on complex and emerging ethical issues with APA, members, and the public. She leads the ethics office, which serves as a trusted ethics resource within and beyond APA.
Childress-Beatty’s work also influences ethics through support of the ethics committee’s educational endeavors and adjudication of ethics cases, and the Committee on Human Research’s work related to the ethical and scientific conduct of research involving human participants. She supports the ethics committee’s Ethics Code Task Force, guiding the association through its revision of its Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct , one of the most widely cited professional ethics codes.
Before assuming her current role, Childress-Beatty held a variety of leadership positions within APA. She has been involved with ethics at APA for over 20 years, first as deputy general counsel, then leading the adjudication team in the ethics office, before becoming the interim director in March of 2017. Prior to embarking on graduate training in psychology, she was a senior associate at a large international law firm.
Childress-Beatty, who is also a certified association executive, is a past chair of ethics of the American Society of Association Executives. In that post, she guided the ASAE Ethics Committee through a revision of its Standards of Conduct for association professionals/executives, consultants and industry partners. She has also served as chair of the Continuing Education and Scientific Abstract Committees of the Mental Health Professional Group, American Society of Reproductive Medicine. She is a founding member of the Ethics Professionals Network, uniting over 30 U.S. medical and mental health association ethics directors.
She holds a master of philosophy degree in international relations from Cambridge University, a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, and a PhD in clinical psychology from Columbia University. She completed her clinical psychology internship at the Veterans Administration Maryland Health Care System (Baltimore VA Medical Center). She is licensed as an attorney.