2026 Leadership Candidates

I am honored to be considered for President Elect of the Society for Personality Assessment. I have been involved with SPA in leadership capacities for a long time, and I am proud of this community and the work that we have done and could be doing. As the Director of the Combined Clinical/Counseling Psychology PhD program at New York University, having dedicated my professional life to improving assessment teaching, training, and supervision, I feel now is a great time for me to step into this leadership role. I have published multiple assessment-focused books (including most recently the Essentials of Culture in Psychological Assessment) and have served in assessment and education leadership roles not only with SPA, but also within the American Psychological Association. My passion is for helping the next generation of psychologists be better at psychological assessment than my generation is/was (which is why I focus primarily on evidence-based assessment practice and social-justice-oriented assessment practice).

The Society for Personality Assessment has been my scholarly home for several decades, affording me amazing opportunities for collaboration, thought leadership, and coalition building. I have served on the Board in multiple capacities throughout the past 20 or so years, including as a strategic liaison to the American Psychological Association (where I am very active in advocating for assessment, including having been President of APA's Assessment Section) and currently as a Member-at-Large. I believe that SPA has provided an amazing scholarly home for assessment professionals, but I also believe that it has the potential to have a much bigger and more important footprint on the field. While SPA has contributed some excellent resources, the field is on the precipice of a new era in the discipline of psychology, with the impending licensure of master's-level psychological practitioners and new competencies required at both the master's and doctoral level. SPA can be on the forefront of driving national (and beyond) policy, and as an active participant in the discussions at the national level (through APA and ASPPB), I believe I can help SPA assert its voice "at the table." 

SPA has provided me with amazing colleagues, friends, and opportunities to collaborate, and I now want to give back to the Society through leadership. I want to make sure that others are afforded the same opportunities I was when I was a young scholar (many of my book and article collaborations emerged from SPA networking, and networking is not my personal strong suit!), and I want to ensure that SPA's voice is heard in larger conversations nationally and beyond. I have served in multiple leadership capacities across other organizations (including President of the Assessment Section of APA; Chair of APA's Board of Educational Affairs; currently as President of the Society of Clinical Psychology; currently as President of the American Board of Psychological Assessment; and in my current academic position as Director of the PhD program at NYU), and I believe I can strengthen the Society as part of the Presidential Trio.

What unique value do students offer to SPA?

My career has been focused heavily on championing and training students to be the strongest, most ethical, social-justice-oriented, and evidence-based assessment psychologists of the future. This includes articles, books, training materials and guidance documents, and direct teaching, training, and supervision. What I’ve learned in my years dedicated to training students—particularly recently—is how the changing perspectives and values of cohorts and generations can actually serve to improve evidence-based practice. For example, I often have to work hard to convince colleagues that culture and context matter and are worth investigating as part of a comprehensive psychological assessment, but I rarely have to convince my students, who tend to hold those values already. And it is my students who have driven a great deal of my research work, particularly around the Wright-Constantine Structured Cultural Interview (WCSCI). The students of SPA have the potential to hold us more senior folks accountable for the work we are doing and promulgating, as so many of us are training students the way we were trained.

Please describe an initiative you would initiate to better support student members.

I believe that although SPAGS has representation on the SPA Board, there is too little direct communication between students and the Board (which allocates funds and other resources to initiatives). One thing I have been thinking about a lot is the three overarching areas we need to represent and support within SPA: science/scientists/researchers, practice/practitioners/clinicians, and education/educators/students. In addition to being more deliberate about Board member representation across these three areas, I have long thought that we should be holding separate town hall meetings for the Board to get direct feedback from members within each of these three domains. If we had a structure of annual town halls focused specifically on education and training, with Board members listening, students would be invited to have direct and specific input into the priorities of SPA. We want to make sure SPA is not only capitalizing on the amazing input students can offer, but also that SPA is supporting our students as much as we can.

Hello! My name is Hilary DeShong. I grew up in a very small town in southcentral Pennsylvania (we had two whole stop lights in town!) and I am a first-generation college student. I attended West Virginia University for my undergraduate degree. Following this, I earned a master’s degree from Villanova University, working under the mentorship of Dr. John Kurtz, before then earning a second master’s and doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology from Oklahoma State University working under the tutelage of Dr. Stephanie Mullins-Sweatt. My research focuses on personality traits and personality pathology in relation to overall well-being and general functioning. Most recently, I have been focused on studying personality change mechanisms and how that relates to the presentation of personality pathology. I teach graduate courses focused on training clinical psychology doctoral students how to conduct psychological assessments and how to provide evidence-based therapeutic services. I also teach undergraduate courses in general psychology and theories of personality. In my free time, I enjoy practicing guitar, hiking, kickboxing, having game nights with friends, and hanging out with my two cats Remus and Romulus.

I am currently an Associate Professor in Psychology at Mississippi State University, where I have worked since 2017. While at MSU, I have served as the Graduate Coordinator for the Clinical and Cognitive Sciences Doctoral Programs, have served on the Mississippi’s Psychological Association board, and have served on several other committees vital to the functioning of the department and clinical program. Starting next year, I will be taking on a new adventure, as I will be relocating to take on the position of Director of Clinical Trainer for the clinical doctoral program at West Virginia University.

My interest in serving on the SPA board is threefold: First, I have gained some preliminary experiences working on standing board and non-board committees as a general SPA member, including the Diversity and Social Justice Committee and the Awards Committee, both of which I have served on for the past 2-3 years; These experiences have helped to solidify my interest in being more involved with the SPA Board. Second, as I am now becoming a "mid-level" career professional, my professional goals have naturally shifted, with a focus more on pursuing leadership positions in order to help shape the field of personality assessment and psychology broadly. Third, given today's challenging political and societal culture, I feel even more of a pull towards leadership positions in our field. While my long-term career goal has always involved a vision of community and leadership involvement, the recent changes and challenges have further instilled this desire in me. I am trying to be the change that I want to see in the world. In sum, I am greatly excited about the opportunity to be a part of the SPA Board of Directors as this role is in line with my own values and goals (both personally and professionally). Thank you for reading! 

What unique value do students offer to SPA? 

SPA is my favorite conference and organization, largely in part because of how student friendly I have found it to be since I first attended back in 2011 (when I was a graduate student). From my perspective, I believe that there are three unique values that students offer to SPA. First, having attended SPA almost every year since 2011, as both a student and now as a non-student, I have seen how much of the conference is driven by student engagement. This conference is oftentimes the first time many students are presenting their research and is the first time they may be networking with other personality researchers and clinicians. This helps keep the society invigorated. The students are excited to be there. They are excited to learn from the experts. And that excitement can be felt by others in the room. Second, students offer a new perspective. The world is a constantly changing place today. Students provide us with unique perspectives on this ever-changing landscape, which in turn, can allow us to continue to improve our assessment techniques to meet the demands and needs of today’s society. Third, students provide a connection to training and implementation that we may otherwise miss. They are able to provide feedback to those of us who are teaching the next generation in personality and psychopathology assessment. This provides unique insights into changes that may need to be implemented to adapt our teaching methods to better serve our graduate programs.

Please describe an initiative you would initiate to better support student members. 

One area of concern that I have noticed is that we have difficulty retaining people when they are transitioning into their later student years (i.e., internship) and into early career (i.e., postdoc). An initiative that may be beneficial is to come up with ways to build bridges for student members that help maintain their connection to the society as they traverse through their early career stages. I think there are several potential ways that this could be done. One method may be to design a more long-term mentorship model in which they have more regular meetings with a specific person or small group of people who are at similar stages of their career (being led by 1-2 senior SPA members). A second method may be to design social events at SPA designed more for specific levels of career, such as expanding on some of our other lunches that we have already in place to support various members. This may help people make connections at the conference that could lead to research collaborations that would facilitate future SPA attendance as they continue to present research, for example (and maybe we could even create some research grants designed to support collaborations by new SPA members to support this initiative). Finally, it might be helpful to have a sort of “job fair” for people seeking clinically oriented positions in personality assessment, to meet people who are recruiting new people into their practices at the conference. All three of these would increase networking opportunities and would hopefully help students to feel more involved in the conference and see more opportunities for them beyond presenting research. 

I am honored to be nominated for a second term as a Representative-at-Large for SPA. Like many of its members, SPA has been my professional home since the early days of graduate school. Throughout my career, it has served as a vital hub for connection, collaboration, and learning. My deep appreciation for these opportunities and my appreciation SPA’s mission to support and grow the field of personality assessment fuels my enthusiasm to continue serving in this role.

I am currently the Director of Research at the Austen Riggs Center, a residential treatment facility for adults with persistent mental health challenges. Much like SPA, Riggs has shaped my professional identity: I first joined the community as a research intern in 2010 and later returned as a staff member in 2016. Both at Riggs and within SPA, I’ve experienced the rewards and complexities of working within organizations that balance diverse and sometimes divergent stakeholder interests. I have learned to navigate differing perspectives while working toward shared goals; I believe that honoring varied viewpoints, while identifying common values, broadens the relevance and impact of our work with our clients and with each other as practitioners, educators, and advocates within the field.

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of serving SPA in multiple capacities: on the Awards Committee, the Conference Planning Committee, and as co-chair of the Continuing Education (CE) Committee (the latter as part of my current Representative-at-Large role). I’ve also served on the editorial board of the Journal of Personality Assessment for several years, both as a consulting editor and as a co-editor for the Clinical Applications and Case Studies section. These experiences have deepened my appreciation for the breadth and depth of expertise among our membership, and highlighted opportunities for bridging the gaps that sometimes exist between members who identify primarily as clinicians or supervisors in applied settings and those who work in more empirical or academic contexts.

One of the contributions I’m most proud of is the implementation of SPA’s monthly Grand Rounds series, which was developed through the hard work and input of the SPA CE Committee. This initiative has carried the important goal of directly addressing member learning goals, while also seeking to elevate both clinical perspectives and methodological innovation and to ensure that SPA remains nimble and responsive to educational needs and priorities between our usual annual conference programming. Launching this program just over a year ago has been one of the most meaningful (and honestly, most fun!) projects to be a part of during my time with SPA. I am hopeful for the opportunity to continue to refine and grow the program during a second term as a Representative-at-Large.

By continuing to engage our membership community through active listening, and remaining committed to openness, integrity, and inclusion as pillars of our organizational identity, I hope to remain a collaborative and responsive representative on the Board. I am excited to help guide SPA into the future and ensure member voices remain central as new possibilities emerge.

What unique value do students offer to SPA?

I have had the privilege of engaging with students at SPA in many ways over my years of service: first, through serving with SPAGS leadership on the board over the past three years; by engaging with students during the mentorship lunch and various receptions and panels at the annual conference; and finally through bringing undergraduate student interns (who have completed a rotation at Austen Riggs) to present their work at the annual conference. SPA student members are a powerhouse of productivity, insight, and vitality within the organization, in many cases inspiring generativity and awe in more seasoned members of the organization while also holding the entire leadership assembly accountable in our mission of growing the field and guiding the profession. Whatever the context – in board meetings, conference panels, or educational programming – the involvement and collaboration of SPA student members ensures that the organization is always considering whether what we have to offer is relevant, inclusive, and a source of momentum in the direction of positive change and more effective care. Without our student members, SPA (like many other organizations) could run the risk of falling into an echo chamber and losing sight of new or emerging frontiers. Elevating student voices in the form of promoting greater student visibility and voice at in-person and virtual events, encouraging greater connectivity and collaboration between generations of SPA members, identifying opportunities to showcase student contributions to the field (both academic as well as clinical and community-based) are all mission-critical priorities that will help guide the organization to sustained growth and deeper purpose and impact in the decades to come. 

Please describe an initiative you would initiate to better support student members.

I’m so grateful for this question, and actually there are two ideas that I have already been considering and would love to hear feedback on from current SPAGS members and leadership. The first idea would be to either work with SPAGS leadership to develop a student-oriented Grand Rounds program (or alternatively, we could designate one or two sessions of our usual Grand Rounds as a collaboration with SPAGS), which could provide educational and training opportunities that address the specific needs of the SPAGS membership community, and/or feature student presenters and showcase their work – either their empirical/academic work in the area of assessment, their unique pathway to specializing in a particular applied area or setting, their creative approaches to utilizing personality assessment to address community or other local challenges or needs, or other training/early career development topics. A second idea would be to expand our current “mentorship lunch” concept from the annual convention into a longer year-round program that would pair SPAGS members with more senior mentor volunteers from SPA, who would be assigned based on areas of mutual interest or expertise. While I recognize that students already have mentors through their academic and clinical training programs, the SPA mentorship program may allow a more unique opportunity for mentorship on other extracurricular topics, such as private practice development, organizational leadership, public health advocacy, etc. I have developed and implemented a similar program through my current position as Director of Research at the Austen Riggs Center for early career psychodynamic researchers (the Psychodynamic Research Mentorship Program) and it has been quite successful in addressing career development needs that are otherwise challenging to meet; I think a similar program for the field of personality assessment would open up new and productive pathways to professional growth and facilitate greater connection between generations of members.