Leadership

Executive Committee

·Name: Yvette Flores (she/her)

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: UC Berkeley

·Current position:  Professor of Psychology in Chicana/Chicano Studies. UC Davis

·CP and Me: Community psychology provides the analytic and empirical tools to promote social justice, equity, and respect for the uniqueness of all humans.  I see my role as a community/clinical psychologist to bridge our discipline with Latinx studies and to find collaborative endeavors to dismantle white supremacy and promote equality for all members, especially BIPOC.  In my teaching, research, advocacy, and community work,  I aim to foreground the voices of the silenced and invisibilized.

·Current role in SCRA: President

·Term dates: August 2021-August 2023

 

·Name: Kwesi Craig C. Brookins (We/Him/He/Ours)

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: Michigan State University

·Current position:  Professor and Director, Center for Family and Community Engagement, NC State University

·CP and Me:  At the heart of Community Psychology is praxis. It engages the intellectual, practical and activist part of who I am towards the service of liberatory change. It puts me in the right relationship with others seeking to engage their own praxis and liberatory goals. Most recently, my passion has been to work towards transformative change within higher education institutions that demonstrate how scholars and the academy itself can and must contribute to transformative change in and with communities. We are doing this by creating a culture of engagement on campus through education, training and example for students and faculty. We are also demonstrating how community-university partnerships can create positive broader impacts in communities. My hope is to see SCRA more intentionally engage in this work.

·Current role in SCRA: President-Elect

·Term dates: January to June 2022

  

·Name: Christopher Nettles (he/him)

·Degree: Ph.D. Clinical/Community Psychology

·Place of degree: George Washington University

·Current position: Executive Director of a Buddhist non-profit

·CP and Me: The financial health of SCRA forms the bedrock of our ability to function and deliver on SCRA’s values and goals.  As Treasurer, I intend to apply the values of servant leadership to ensure that SCRA is financially healthy well into the future. Those values include transparency, integrity, and promoting participation. My primary role is to lead administration of the budget and finances. This responsibility is carried out in conjunction with Executive Committee. The responsibilities include tracking and accounting for all expenses and revenues. I regularly update the Executive Committee and SCRA membership about our finances. SCRA also holds significant financial assets and I chair our Finance Committee who, along with an outside financial advisor, monitors our investments and guides our long-term investment strategy.

·Current role in SCRA: Treasurer

·Term dates: August 2021 – August 2024

 

·Name: Michele M. Schlehofer (she/her)

·Degree: PhD, Applied Social Psychology

·Place of degree: Claremont Graduate University

·Current position: Professor, Department of Psychology, Salisbury University (Maryland)

·CP and Me: I believe that, as psychologists, we have an ethical and professional obligation to work in collaboration with diverse publics to build a thriving world. With its ecological focus and strong social justice value orientation, community psychology provides the framework and resources to realize this vision. The skills gained from community psychology have led to a career deeply engaged in public psychology practices which have spanned from policy advocacy at the federal and state level, community organizing centered around support and advocacy for LGBTQ+ people, developing a transdisciplinary research program on community-situated ethics, and more. I am very honored to have the opportunity to contribute back to an organization which shares my vision for not just accepting how things are, but rather actively building the type of world we want to live in.

·Current role in SCRA: Secretary

·Term dates: August 2022 – August 2025

Name: Sara Buckingham

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: Human Services Psychology, University of Maryland Baltimore County

·Current position: Assistant Professor University of Alaska Anchorage

·CP and Me: The Council of Representatives is the legislative body of APA and has full power and authority over the affairs and funds of the association, including APA boards, committees, divisions and affiliated organizations. Council is composed of representatives of divisions; representatives of state, provincial and territorial psychological associations (SPTAs), and the members of the Board of Directors. As SCRA's representative, I participate in APA Council meetings, vote on matters before the APA, and promote and support initiatives of interest to SCRA. Please reach out via email with any questions, concerns, or suggestions you have regarding matters that involve the APA

·Current role in SCRA: Representative to Council

·Term dates: January 2021-December 2023

 

Name: Dawn Henderson

·Degree: MS, M.Ed., PhD

·Place of degree: North Carolina State University

·Current position: Director of Research, Village of Wisdom, Co-Director, Collective Health and Education Equity Research Collaborative

·CP and Me: I identify as a Black Community Psychologist and believe in the power of collective organizing, collective beingness that allows us to come together through our common humanity and dismantle systems of oppression that inhibits our collective ability to thrive. However, I am quite aware that part of the gathering of our humanity comes when we recognize how "isms" with an emphasis on racism have delimited Black and Brown folks capacity to maximize their collective power and resources to enact change and to thrive in their homes, neighborhoods, and communities. Thus, we need to start here first if we are dedicated to true transformation from a collective and ecological lens. 

·Current role in SCRA: Member at Large

·Term dates: August 2021-August 2024

 

 

·Name: Aaron Baker (He/Him)

·Degree: Community Psychology PhD (expected June 2023)

·Place of degree: National Louis University

·Current position: Doctoral Student

·CP and Me: My interest in Community Psychology stems from my experience working in student affairs in higher education, primarily in residence life and student success advising, where I observed systems and structures that placed more emphasis on fixing individuals. Broadly, my goal is to help increase quality of life, sense of thriving, and effective management of life transitions among adolescents and emerging adults with the eventual goal of improved well-being now and later in life. Currently, I am interested in how adolescents and emerging adults recruit and engage their system of support, especially as they navigate dynamic life transitions.

·Current role in SCRA: Student Representative

·Term dates: August 2021-August 2023

 

 

·Name: Moshood Olanrewaju

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: National Louis University

·Current position: Adjunct Professor

·CP and Me: 

My introduction to CP started while I was searching for a doctoral degree to advance my knowledge as a refugee advocate and community service administrator—the relationship felt like a marriage made in heaven. CP offers a critical lens to conduct liberatory, ethico-onto-epistemological inquiry-oriented work and networking globally. I soon became interested in CP professional societies and practice competencies growth.

·Current role in SCRA: Midwest Regional Coordinator

 

·Name: Nicole Allen

·Degree:

·Place of degree:

·Current position: Associate Head and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

·CP and Me:

·Current role in SCRA: Editor of AJCP

·Term dates:

 

·Name: Dominique Thomas (He/Him)

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: Georgia State University

·Current position: Adjunct Professor, Psychology Program, Division of Life Sciences, Morehouse College

·CP and Me: I am a scholar-practitioner interested in the political philosophy of social justice and empowerment. My praxis is a liberation psychology informed by Afrofuturism as a form of anti-imperialism; I study how educational institutions reproduce racial capitalism. I am Editor of The Community Psychologist and previously served as Associate Editor (2018-2020). I attained my B.A. in Psychology from Morehouse College and my M.A./Ph.D. in Community Psychology from Georgia State University. I was a Scholarship to Practice Fellow (2018-2020) at the University of Michigan. I served as chair of the Council for Cultural, Ethnic, and Racial Affairs (2019-2021) and am currently guest-editing a forthcoming special issue in the AJCP, Imperial Algorithms: Contemporary Manifestations of Racism and Colonialism.

·Current role in SCRA: Editor of TCP

 

·Name: Mason G. Haber (He/Him)

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: Wayne State University

·Current position: Director of Evaluation, Judge Baker’s Children’s Center

·CP and Me: 

·Current role in SCRA: Chair Council of Education Programs

·Term dates: 2020-2022

 

·Name: Judah Viola (He/Him)

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: DePaul University

·Current position: Associate Professor

·CP and Me: I am an Associate Professor at National Louis University supporting our Community Psychology PhD program.  I have previously served as chair of the SCRA Policy committee and been a member of the council of education programs.  I have also co-edited on of the books in the SCRA book series. In my role as Publications committee chair I will work with the committee to identify, encourage, implement, and oversee effective ways of disseminating information about community research and action. Our committee works closely with the editors of all of SCRA’s publications, including our TCP newsletter, the SCRA book series published by Oxford University Press, and the American Journal of Community Psychology.

·Current role in SCRA: Chair of Publication Committee

·Term dates: January 2019-December 2022

 

Name: Sindhia Colburn (She/Her)

·Degree: PhD

·Place of degree: Bowling Green State University

·Current position: Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow with Children's National Primary Care

·CP and Me: Over the course of my training, my personal and professional experiences deepened my perspective on child educational and health disparities, and the institutional factors that perpetuate them, especially for youth who are minoritized based on their racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender identities. Using my clinical-community training and my passion for community psychology practice, I hope to dedicate my career to increasing access to equitable care for minoritized children and their families. In particular, I am interested in sociocultural factors that affect child and family well-being such as intergenerational and historical trauma, wealth and resource distribution, youth-adult relationships, and neighborhood/school social norms.

·Current role in SCRA: Representative from CERA

SCRA Administrative Staff

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Amber Kelly  

As the Executive Director, I work with our staff and the Executive Committee to oversee the operations and strategic priorities for SCRA.  To help promote our vision to enhance well-being and promote social justice, I collaborate with SCRA members and other professional organizations. I am passionate about promoting a culture of inclusion in which all members feel as though their voice matters within the organization, and that cannot happen without the support of dedicated volunteers. We are a 99% volunteer ran organization.  Your gifts are welcome and needed to advance the field. Please reach out to share your ideas, suggestions, and experiences. I look forward to connecting with members. 

 

 ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR

Jadwiga Hescox    

CP and Me: I have my MA in health psychology, though community psychology has long been a guiding force in my education and volunteer work, with my interest in SCRA predating my current role by several years. So, I am delighted to  be the Administrative Coordinator for SCRA. My job is to handle many of the administrative activities for the organization. In my role as Administrative Coordinator, I hope to ensure the smooth operation of the administrative moving pieces of SCRA, so that the organization can continue to empower and promote positive change across many different contexts.

OUTREACH COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Ashley Simons-Rudolph  

CP and Me: As Outreach Communications Specialist, I serve as a catalyst to bring SCRA resources to greater public attention.  I have a background in community psychology as well as non-profit and community based advocacy.  I look forward to working with you to help promote your research and community involvement both within and outside of SCRA through press releases, e-newsletters, webinars, videos, social media and more!