WASHINGTON — Jessica Henderson Daniel, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, has been elected 2018 president of the American Psychological Association. She will serve as APA’s president-elect in 2017.
“I am honored to have been elected to lead psychology’s pre-eminent professional association,” Daniel said. “One of my key priorities will be to involve psychologists in formulating public policy at the local and national levels.”
Daniel is also director of training in psychology in the department of psychiatry and associate director, Leadership Education in Adolescent Health Training Program, Division of Adolescent Medicine, at Boston Children’s Hospital.
A member of APA since 1978, Daniel is the first African-American woman elected president of the association. She served on the APA Board of Directors from 2005-2007 and was named a fellow of the organization in 1996. Daniel has served as president of APA’s Div. 35 (The Society for the Psychology of Women) and was a member of APA’s Task Force on Adolescent Girls, Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice, Council of Representatives and Finance Committee. In addition, she was the senior member of APA’s Early Career Psychologist Task Force; chair of The APA Presidential Centering on Mentoring Task Force and the first African-American elected to the position of member-at-large on the APA Board of Directors. While in the latter role, she initiated the formation of the Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents.
“Psychology has the extraordinary potential to effect positive change every day and in every way around the world,” Daniel said. “As a consequence, psychologists need to be in the room, at the table and at the head of the table when policies are formulated and implemented. With our focus on science, practice, education and public policy we can make substantial contributions on the local, state, regional and national levels.”
Daniel’s career has focused primarily on instruction, training and mentoring. Her contributions as a mentor were recognized by Harvard Medical School in 1998 when she received the A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award — the first woman, the first person of color and the first psychologist to be so honored. She has since received mentoring awards from the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students, the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues and the Society for the Psychology of Women. Beginning in 2007, the latter award was renamed the Strickland-Daniel Mentoring Award partly in her honor.
Daniel received her PhD from the University of Illinois and was a postdoctoral fellow in clinical psychology at the Judge Baker Guidance Center in Boston. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes more than 117,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.