Perrin wins APA Division 12 award

April 4, 2017

The American Psychological Association's Society of Clinical Psychology has awarded Paul Perrin, Ph.D., associate professor of counseling and health psychology, the Samuel M. Turner Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Diversity in Clinical Psychology. This award is conferred annually to an early career psychologist who has made exemplary contributions to diversity within the field.

In addition to teaching multiculturalism in doctoral courses such as Culture, Ethnicity and Health, Perrin has a social justice-focused research agenda in areas such as racial/ethnic disparities in rehabilitation and health. He also works as part of the Primary Care Psychology Training Collaborative to train clinical and counseling psychology doctoral students to bring critical mental health services to underserved populations in the Richmond area.

In his letter nominating Perrin for the award, Timothy Elliott, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Texas A&M University and former faculty member in the Department of Psychology at VCU, wrote, "Paul has a firm commitment to populations too often marginalized in health care, and I am confident that he will continue to use his career to make health care more inclusive and expand clinical psychology’s role in the process." 

"Though I'm honored the committee decided to give me the award," Perrin says, "there are many people who have contributed far more than I to diversity in the profession. My hope is that other allies in diversity and inclusion advocacy in our field - no matter what their identity - will use justice and equity as the building blocks for their professional pursuits."

Read more about Perrin's work on his VCU Department of Psychology faculty page and on the Social Justice in Health Lab website.