Dr. Coulter, Dr. Reuther to Serve as President, President-Elect for Louisiana Psychological Association

Top: Dr. Alan Coulter at a conference. He is currently serving as President of the LPA. Below: Dr. Erin Reuther presenting. She is the current President-Elect

The Louisiana Psychological Association announced its newly elected officers to their Executive Council, who began serving last month. The 2019–2020 Council are Drs. Alan Coulter (President), Dr. Erin Reuther (President-Elect), and two new Directors, Dr. Christopher Parkinson and Dr. Amanda Raines. Returning officers are Dr. ValaRay Irvin (Secretary), Dr. William Costelloe (Treasurer), Dr. Bridget SonnierHillis (Director) and Dr. Kim VanGeffen (Director).

Dr. Alan Coulter will serve as the 2019– 2020 President. He is the Director of Program Area for the School of Allied Health Professions, Human Development Center, at LSU Health Sciences Center. He is the Director of Educational Innovations for the Human Development Center and LAS*PIC, and the Principal Lead for the TIERS Group. Dr. Coulter served on the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education, was a member of the National Monitoring Stakeholders Group, a recipient of Child Advocacy Award from the National Association of School Psychologists, and a past president of the National Association of School Psychologists.

Dr. Erin Reuther will serve as PresidentElect. She is a Pediatric Clinical Psychologist at Children’s Hospital-New Orleans and obtained board certification (ABPP) in Clinical Psychology in 2015. Dr. Reuther earned her doctoral degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge where she focused on research in anxiety and cognitive-behavioral treatment with children and adults. She completed her clinical internship at the University of Florida-Shands Hospital in the child/pediatric track, where she further specialized in exposure with response prevention for OCD, CBT for anxiety, and health psychology working with inpatient and outpatient pediatric and adult clients with medical illnesses including gastroenterology disease, pediatric diabetes, and those preparing for surgery.

For her service, Dr. Reuther will focus on “… communication of all that LPA does to advocate for the profession, including direct coordination and communication with APA and national efforts, interacting with governmental agencies to educate and advocate for the profession, keeping psychologists in Louisiana informed of best practices, and organizing psychologists together.”

Newly elected were Dr. Christopher Parkinson and Dr. Amanda Raines.

Dr. Parkinson is a Clinical Psychologist with an emphasis in Health Psychology from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science. He completed his internship at the Gulf Coast Veterans Healthcare System and his postdoctoral residency in Health Psychology and Pain at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Healthcare System. He currently holds a staff position at the SLVHCS as the Palliative Care Psychologist engaged in clinical care, program development, training, and research. He also serves as adjunct clinical instructor within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of the Tulane University School of Medicine. He is the 2018 recipient of the LPA Early Career award.

Dr. Raines serves as a Clinical Investigator at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Healthcare System and as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Louisiana State University. Her doctorate is in clinical psychology from Florida State University and her internship and residency was with LSVHCS. Her research focuses on identifying and empirically examining risk and maintenance factors as well as the development of novel interventions that can be used to treat and prevent anxiety and related pathology. She has published over 75 peer-reviewed manuscripts and was the Early Career Psychologist delegate to the 2019 Practice Leadership Conference of the American Psychological Association.

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