2011-2012 Board of Directors

The slate of board member electees (for 2011-2012) include the following:

President-Elect: Joseph Ciarrochi

Member-at-large (slate #1: basic): Akihiko (Aki) Masuda

Member-at-large (slate #2: applied): Jason Luoma

Student representative: Amie Langer

President-Elect (nominees):

Joseph Ciarrochi, Ph.D., University of Wollongong, Australia

Dr. Joseph Ciarrochi is an Associate lecturer at University of Wollongong and has been extensively involved in ACT sense 2001. I have authored and edited five books, and over 60 peer reviewed articles related to the promotion of mental health and emotional well-being. I've written a book on integrating ACT with CBT, and am currently working with community members on three books related to adolescence, weight issues, and ACT and positive psychology. I am leading the push to form a new journal for ACBS, a journal that is intended to be of interest to both scientists and practitioners. My main mission is to build a community that can better support people in the field to conduct psychological interventions.

Member-at-large (slate #1) nominees:

Akihiko (Aki) Masuda, Ph.D.

Aki Masuda is an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University (2007-present). In 2006, he received a Ph.D. in Psychology (Clinical) from University of Nevada, Reno under the supervision of Dr. Steven C. Hayes. To date Aki has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on ACT and related topics. His current research/clinical interests are broad, including the applicability of ACT to ethnically, culturally, and cross-nationally diverse groups of people, stigma and prejudice, disordered eating problems, Zen and Buddhism, and psychological flexibility as a corner stone of behavioral and physical health. Statement: If elected, I would like to primarily focus on two things. First, I will work for ACBS to fill in the gap between applied work and basic work within ACBS. I would like to do so by facilitating and promoting open dialogues among practitioners and researchers. Second, I would like to expand our understanding and practice of ACT within the diverse cultural and cross-national contexts. To date, ACT has been studied and practiced with diverse languages under various cultural contexts (i.e., verbal community). I think this second 2nd focus is important because Understanding ACT in diverse contexts is likely to elucidate the very essence of ACT, and such understanding is likely to bring us into one as a whole.  

Member-at-large (slate #2) nominees:

Jason Luoma, Ph.D., Private Practice

Jason Luoma, Ph.D., is Director of Portland Psychotherapy Clinic, Research, & Training Center. After discovering ACT in 1997, he moved to Reno where he trained with Steven Hayes as an intern and early career psychologist. He has published over a dozen articles related to ACT, a book on ACT, and co-authored two successful NIH grants on stigma. His current research focuses on stigma and shame in addictive behavior along with a secondary focus on training and dissemination. As director of a center dedicated to promoting evidence-based practice, he supervises a postdoctoral fellowship in ACT and provides training locally and internationally. He also maintains an active clinical practice.

Statement: The ACBS community has inspired me like no other professional community I have ever participated in. I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to contribute to ACBS as director of the first ACT Summer Training Institute and the 8th ACBS World Conference, a founding member of the ACBS Training Committee, and current chair of the ACBS Training Committee. I hope to continue my service as member at large. As both a researcher and clinician, one of my priorities is to support conversation and sharing between basic researchers and clinicians who apply basic principles in their work every day. As a business person, I hope to be more involved in the financial decisions of ACBS, to help this relatively new organization utilize its money wisely and efficiently. And as a human being (and enthusiastic contributor to the follies), I will work to foster a sense of community where all can feel they are contributing to something larger than themselves.

Student representative nominees:

Amie Langer, University of Iowa

Amie Langer is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Iowa where she has received training in ACT, DBT, and FAP under the supervision of Dr. James Marchman. She will be starting a one year clinical internship in the Adult CBT track at Duke University Medical Center in the summer of 2011. Her interests include examining the processes of change in third-wave therapies, particularly as they relate to social and interpersonal functioning in treatment-resistant populations, and engaging in research, consulting, and teaching efforts to promote the development and dissemination of effective interventions. She is currently examining the ability of ACT-based group interventions to reduce psychological and physical aggression in clinical and forensic populations. She is collaborating with the Judicial Branch, the Coalition against Domestic Violence, and the Department of Corrections in the state of Iowa to apply ACT to the development of a new, empirically-supported intervention for court-mandated domestic violence offenders. She will continue training facilitators, collecting process and outcome data, and disseminating this new program over the next several years.

I am committed to the purpose and philosophy of contextual behavioral science in my life and work. I hope to become more involved in the ACBS learning and research community as Student Representative. ACBS has been an invaluable source of support and inspiration throughout my graduate training, and I aim to facilitate student involvement and connection to this outstanding community and all it has to offer.

The ACBS bylaws say:

The officers of the Association shall consist of a President, President-Elect, Past-President, Secretary-Treasurer, a student representative, and four Members-at-Large of the Board of Directors. Each shall perform the usual duties of the respective office and specific duties provided elsewhere in these Bylaws or as assigned by the Board of Directors. Elections for officers shall be held every year. The President, President-Elect, Past-President, and student representative shall each serve a one-year term and may not hold any other offices within the Association. The Members-at-Large shall be elected every two years. In each two-year cycle one of the Members-at-Large shall have a strong background and interest in basic science relevant to the purposes of the Association. The Secretary-Treasurer shall serve a three year term.