Mian-Li Ong is recognized with this APA Citizen Psychology Citation for his leadership throughout his graduate studies in building an online ecology to raise the accuracy and visibility of psychological knowledge on Wikipedia and Wikiversity by blending research, teaching, and service in a way that multiplies opportunities for students, generates tangible products and gives back to the world.
Ong innovated and developed new ways of getting students and early career psychologists engaged in bringing the best information to the public. What started as editing some pages about psychological assessment on Wikipedia has turned into a series of projects and numerous grants engaging a professional community that is building new models for helping people. Ong has personally edited hundreds of pages, and taught more than 200 students, graduate students and faculty members how to make edits. He also built a team of undergraduate editors who are continuing to make extensive additions and improvements to more than 150 webpages, which have been viewed more than 85 million times.
His work has become the centerpiece of dissemination and implementation efforts via Wiki pages that help people find the best free assessment and screening tools, and then quickly link them to online resources with information about treatment or find-a-therapist directories. For example, Ong coordinates team-built pages about current events, such as the school shootings in Florida, Maryland and Texas, and resources addressing loaded themes raised by popular media, such as "13 Reasons Why." By using the plots of such shows, he and his team organize resources related to bullying, sexting, substance misuse, sexual assault and suicide. Suicide prevention chatlines, accurate information about therapy (combatting the portrayal of an inept high school counselor in the series) and other content areas are now connected to a site likely to be visited by teens, young adults and their parents. Such projects are building bridges that help the community throughout North Carolina and also internationally.
In leading these initiatives, Ong is designing processes that are creative, innovative methods to share ideas and information with the community. Over the past four years, he has become a skilled Wikipedia editor, an official Wiki Ambassador for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and co-founder of a student service organization and affiliated charitable corporation, Helping Give Away Psychological Science, which was recently recognized as a 501c(3) charity.
Ong’s novel and tireless efforts are singlehandedly responsible for combating “fake news” about psychology on a mass scale by improving the quality of publicly accessible psychological information.
Originally from Singapore, Ong served in the Singapore Armed Forces as a company medic, receiving the “Coin of Commendation for Excellence” before becoming a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently engaged in his predoctoral internship at the University of Texas, San Antonio Medical Center.