For her extensive community work and research, Katherine M. Slama, PhD, MSS is being presented with the American Psychological Association’s Excellence in Rural Psychology award. Among her accomplishments, Slama continues to teach rural practice courses at the University of St. Mary’s Minnesota, even after retiring from an adjunct position with The University of Minnesota Medical School Department of Psychiatry. She wrote the online prevention workshops “Dealing with Stress: An Educational Web-Based Seriesopens in new window,” designed particularly to assist rural people. She was chair and coordinator of the annual National Rural Behavioral Health Practice Conference for many years. She also has contributed to research, with a number of publications and numerous presentations.
Slama said, “Having grown up on a North Dakota farm and practiced psychology in an urban area before moving to rural South Dakota and Minnesota, I realized how poorly rural people’s mental health needs are served. The lack of rural research, scarcity of services and poor resources for rural professionals inspired me to work on rural mental health issues.”
Raised on a family farm in northeast North Dakota, graduated from Milton High School and the University of North Dakota. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Iowa. After internship and working in Camarillo, California, she moved to South Dakota, where she was professor with the University of South Dakota (USD)School of Medicine and headed a psychiatric rehabilitation program. Slama earned a master’s in administration at USD and moved to Minnesota to serve as CEO of that state’s mental health center at Willmar, Minnesota. While working at Stevens Community Medical Center in western Minnesota, she coordinated domestic violence and dialectical behavior therapy programs. She taught psychology courses at the University of Minnesota-Morris and was a founding member and president of the Minnesota Rural Health Association. She has served on the boards and as officer of the South Dakota and the Minnesota Psychological Associations and received a 2018 MPA Presidential Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Psychology.
The APA Excellence in Rural Psychology Award is presented annually to an individual who demonstrates outstanding service to rural and remote populations and who exemplifies the importance of psychological advocacy, research, education and practice in these regions. The award will be presented to Slama on Aug. 9 at the 2019 APA Annual Convention in Chicago.