Jennifer F. Kelly, PhD, ABPP

Jennifer F. Kelly, PhD, ABPP, is founding director of the Atlanta Center for Behavioral Medicine, where she works primarily with patients who have chronic medical conditions. Her area of specialty is pain management, a topic on which she has written numerous research articles and book chapters. She is certified in clinical health psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology.

A native of Gulfport, Mississippi, Kelly holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi, and a master’s and doctorate in clinical psychology from Florida State University. Before founding the Atlanta Center for Behavioral Medicine in 1994, she was an assistant professor at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston and coordinated psychological services for the Southeastern Pain Institute and the National Pain Institute.

Kelly has long been active in APA, serving the Board of Directors as recording secretary from 2013-18 and as a member-at-large from 2010-12. In 2019, she was inaugural co-chair of the APA Advocacy Coordinating Committee, which is responsible for evaluating and prioritizing the association’s public policy goals to drive the organization and the science and discipline of psychology forward. She is a past member of the association’s Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology Advisory Committee, a past chair of the APA Board of Professional Affairs and a former president of APA’s Division of State, Provincial and Territorial Psychological Association Affairs (Div. 31). She also served on the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice.  

Kelly was recognized at the 2019 APA Services, Inc., Practice Leadership Conference for her leadership in advancing the profession of psychology through federal advocacy. She is the 2012 recipient of the APA Division of Health Psychology/American Psychological Foundation Timothy B. Jeffrey Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Health Psychology and the 2011 recipient of APA's State Leadership Award. Her other professional awards include the APA Karl F. Heiser Advocacy Award, the Diversity Award from the Committee of State Leaders of APA and the 2006 Outstanding Psychologist Award from APA Div. 31.

A former president of the Georgia Psychological Association, Kelly has served as federal advocacy coordinator of that association for more than 20 years, a position she will continue in during her presidency. She served as a member-at-large of the American Board of Professional Psychology Foundation from 2014-19 and was an associate editor of the APA journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice^® from 2006-11.

Kelly is a graduate of the 2003 class of Leadership Atlanta and has served on the Advisory Board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference/W.O.M.E.N., INC. as well as the Board/Executive Committee of Project Interconnections, an organization in the metro Atlanta area devoted to providing housing and support services for the homeless mentally ill, and Chris 180, a multi-service behavioral health organization dedicated to the care of children, youth, adults, and families.

Kelly’s primary presidential initiative was to advance psychology’s role in achieving health equity. View the Presidential Initiative on Psychology and Health Equity page to learn more. This topic is particularly timely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated existing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities in the United States. It is an area in which psychology can make a positive difference.

Health disparities statistics are alarming. For example, as of 2021, while only 5.9% of non-Hispanic Whites were uninsured, that percentage rose to 10.6% for African Americans, 14.9% for Native Americans and 16.1% for Latinos. Deaths from COVID-19 have created further concerns. The Indigenous population and Black Americans have died at higher rates than White Americans and other minority groups have also been hit hard. These mortality numbers do not include the mental health toll on victims, their families and loved ones, as well as others affected by protective measures such as stay-at-home orders. 

Kelly created the Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity to review relevant research, community-based initiatives and policy work, and produce a comprehensive report articulating a vision for the role of psychology in advancing health equity. The task force developed a virtual APA Summit on Heath Equity, held during the second quarter of 2021. Subsequently, the APA Council of Representatives adopted the resolution Advancing Health Equity in Psychology proposed by the task force on October 29, 2021. The resolution particularly focuses on race/ethnicity and racism as the key driver of health inequities. The final task force report articulated specific recommendations for psychological science, education and training, practice, public policy, and legislative advocacy.  

A related effort was a second Presidential Task Force appointed to address systemic racism, the Presidential Task Force on Strategies to Eradicate Racism, Discrimination, and Hate. The task force was charged with recommending a set of evidence-based resources to disseminate to psychologists and others to use in efforts to prevent and address racism, discrimination, and hate, and developing a conceptual framework to guide the identification of programs and resources both external and internal to APA. Their work identified psychology’s role in helping to expose, understand, and ultimately dismantle racism operating across all levels in education, science, health care, work and economic opportunities, criminal justice, children, youth and families, and government and public policy. 

The task force was responsible for two groundbreaking resolutions that were passed by the 2021 APA Council of Representatives: Apology to People of Color for the American Psychological Association’s Role in Promoting, Perpetuating, and Failing to Challenge Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Human Hierarchy in the United States; and the Role of Psychology and APA in Dismantling Systemic Racism Against People of Color in the United States.