ANA Election 2022

For the past two years, I have been serving the ANA mentorship program to foster ANA graduate students’ pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship applications and professional development. I am looking forward to facilitating the development of the ANA community by making sure the job duties of the ANA Secretary are carefully attended. I am also dedicated to learning the duties of the Treasurer in the absence of a Treasurer.  

As a South Asian American, raised by two immigrant parents who sought to expand their educational opportunities in the United States while staying rooted in their native culture, I have spent most of my life navigating cultural divides. I am a cross cultural clinician in private practice who has been interested in working with underrepresented populations throughout my career. I have worked in a variety of settings including research, large clinical health centers and presently in private practice in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. With my interests being in cognitive aging and acculturation, I am struck by the unique strengths and challenges the South Asian community and other Asian communities experience as they age in our society. 

I joined ANA at the start of COVID, as I was keenly interested in and yearning for dialogue with neuropsychologists who worked with the Asian community at large. I have found the list-serve to be warm and inviting and it is my goal if I am elected to the executive board to further foster the knowledge and mission of the ANA in the manner I was welcomed to it. I would sincerely like the opportunity to contribute to a scientific and clinical community that is involved in mentoring young clinicians and students in a manner that was not easy to find when I was training. Additionally, I would like to grow our outreach with private practitioners who may be unaware of the resources and education ANA provides. I look forward to your consideration of my nomination and to serving this unique organization. 

I am a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor at Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. As the co-chair for the ANA Advocacy Committee for the last two years, I had the privilege of working with colleagues within ANA and across neuropsychological organizations in developing educational webinars and resource materials to raise awareness of educational disparities exacerbated by the pandemic, and the integration of intersectionality in psychology. My role as the liaison between the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology and APA’s Committee on Child, Youth and Family also afforded me opportunities to see how professional psychology organizations can support/build resilience in children/families through public engagement.

If I am elected to serve in the ANA Executive Board, to support ANA’s mission, I would like to support projects that focus on community engagement. In order to work towards decreasing stigmatization of our practice, reducing barriers to educational/healthcare services, and adapting our practice to the needs of our patient populations, it will be important to bridge the gap between clinician-scientists and the people we serve. Providing spaces where neuropsychologists can disseminate scientific knowledge to the public and engage in civil discourse can foster a sense of transparency among marginalized communities that have historically been overlooked/mistreated, participate in mutual learning, facilitate healing, and garner appreciation of psychology practices. 

Additionally, as a pediatric neuropsychologist who work with multidisciplinary teams, I believe collaborations with other professional organizations in different specialty areas is essential to our practice. As such, another personal goal would include supporting advocacy projects by working alongside with specialty organizations outside of neuropsychology (e.g., school psychologists, trauma psychologists). In effect, by building partnerships with other psychological associations and the general public, we can strengthen ANA’s standing as a professional organization while also make more of a positive impact in communities we serve.

I plan to contribute to all three aims of the ANA mission of expanding membership, overseeing leadership, and promoting engagement. As an attending neuropsychologist at UCLA, I can discuss how trainees and faculty can be involved with ANA and why it would benefit them to join. By serving as secretary, I would be included in board meetings that would oversee the future leadership of ANA. During these meetings, I could help shape the direction of the organization and ensure that diversity and equity principles are being upheld. 

As an individual living in Los Angeles, I am lucky to be surrounded by diversity and appreciate how that shapes my way of thought and my young daughter’s development. We know culturally responsive educational experiences help build self-confidence and skills; increase awareness, appreciation, and inclusion of diverse beliefs and cultures; and maximizes academic achievement and educational success. I think the same can be applied for adults. 

Lastly, if elected as secretary, I would become a more engaged member of the association and facilitate conversation within the community by sharing relevant meeting notes that would benefit our community as a whole.