Executive Committee

The Div. 19 executive committee consists of the president, president-elect, past-president, secretary, treasurer, members-at-large and representative to APA council.

President: Thomas Williams

Thomas J. Williams, PhD, serves as director, Senior Leader Development and Resiliency, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pa. During his 30 plus year career as an Army officer, he was incredibly honored to serve soldiers and their families in various places around the world.  Highlights of his past assignments include serving as the deputy director, Policy Analysis, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) and as the assistant to the Chief, Medical Corps Affairs, Office of the U.S. Army Surgeon General, The Pentagon. He also served simultaneously as Chief, Department of Psychology and as Chief, Strategic Planning pision, Walter Reed Health Care System. He subsequently was assigned as the Command Psychologist, 902d Military Intelligence Group, Fort Meade, Md., a position he held until his 2002 assignment to the U.S. Army War College. From 2002 to 2012, Dr. Williams directed and oversaw the dramatic expansion of The Army War College's Army Physical Fitness Research Institute (APFRI). Dr. Williams is the co-editor of, "The Ethical Practice of Operational Psychology: Military and Intelligence Applications," published in 2010 by the American Psychological Association. 

Past President: Kathryn T. Lindsey

Kathryn T. Lindsey, PhD, is currently an active duty Commander in the Navy and has been on active duty for 25 years.  She received her Navy commission from Iowa State University in 1988 as a scholarship midshipman in the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.  She served 12 years as a line officer in the Navy before transferring to the Medical Service Corps.  She earned a master’s degree in management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., followed by both a master’s and a doctoral degree in clinical psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.  

CDR Lindsey studied psychophysiological reactivity to light- and season-relevant stimuli in seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and is published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.  She has coauthored several articles on cognitive-behavioral therapy for SAD.  CDR Lindsey also designed a study to provide information about gang members in the military, interviewing self-identified gang members and extremists incarcerated in Navy and Marine Corps brigs as well as the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.  This work has made a number of substantive and significant contributions that have not only served to strengthen our scientific understanding of these topics but also have informed development of policy and practice of psychology within the U.S. military.  

Her Navy assignments include: Assistant Administrative Officer, Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas; Protocol Officer, Commander, Fleet Air Mediterranean/ Commander, Maritime Air Forces Mediterranean/Commander, Task Force 67, Naples, Italy; Administrative Department Head, Commander, U.S. Naval Activities, United Kingdom, London; student, Manpower Systems Analyses, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif.; Enlisted End Strength Planner (N13), Bureau of Naval Personnel, Washington, D.C.; student, medical and clinical psychology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md.; psychology intern, National Naval Medical Center (NNMC), Bethesda, Md.; Substance Abuse Rehabilitation Program (SARP) Director, U.S. Naval Hospital Naples, Italy; Behavioral Health Department Head, NNMC, Bethesda, Md.; Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law, U.S. Naval Academy (USNA), Annapolis, Md.; and Director, Midshipmen Development Center, USNA, Annapolis, Md. She is currently the Mental Health Department Head at the Naval Health Clinic, Annapolis, Md.    

CDR Lindsey has been active in p. 19 since 2000 and has served in the following positions: graduate student committee chair; membership chair; Newsletter, Public Relations, and Outreach Committee Member; pision secretary; pision treasurer; co-chair, Financial Planning Committee; and president-elect.  She also is a member of the American Psychological Association and the p. 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology).  

President-elect:  Ann Landes

Ann Landes, PhD, is a primary care psychologist and the health behavior coordinator at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center in Gainesville, Fla. She earned her doctoral degree in counseling psychology at Georgia State University and received her clinical training at the Audie L. Murphy VA in San Antonio, Texas.

Landes is actively engaged in program development and the provision of inpidual, couples, and group interventions for veterans and their spouses, for issues such as post-deployment reintegration, posttraumatic stress and behavioral health promotion. She also provides services in health behavior coaching, interdisciplinary team building, staff development and program evaluation.

Her clinical and research interests include couples and family resilience, post-deployment reintegration, posttraumatic stress disorder, primary care behavioral health and positive psychology. Landes continues to present at major conferences on topics related to military personnel, veterans and their families.

Secretary: Eric Surface

Eric A. Surface, PhD, is the co-founder, president and principal scientist of SWA Consulting Inc. (SWA), an applied research and consulting firm in Raleigh, N.C. SWA’s mission is to make a difference in learning and performance for inpiduals and organizations. Eric has worked with military personnel and organizations since 1997 in the areas of needs assessment, training evaluation and effectiveness, learning, assessment, and organizational effectiveness. He has been the principal investigator of numerous learning and testing related projects, including training effectiveness studies and needs assessment projects across the special operations forces (SOF) community for the Special Operations Forces Language Office (SOFLO). He has presented numerous conference papers and is published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Military Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Performance and Foreign Language Annals. He also authored the chapter on training needs assessment for the “Handbook of Work Analysis” (2012) edited by Mark Alan Wilson, Winston Bennett Jr., Shanan Gwaltney Gibson and George Michael Alliger. His research interests include learning, training evaluation and effectiveness, needs assessment, work performance, context, validation and work-related foreign language. He received his PhD in I/O psychology from North Carolina State University, his MA in psychology from East Carolina University and his BA in psychology from Wake Forest University. He was a consortium research fellow and postdoctoral fellow with the U.S. Army Research Institute. Read more about his publications and conference papers.

Treasurer:  Scott Johnston

Capt. Scott L. Johnston is a native Californian and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Davis and his PhD in clinical psychology from the Pacific Graduate School in Palo Alto. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric psychology at Harvard Medical School. He has been a licensed clinical psychologist since 1995 and is board certified in both forensic and clinical psychology.

Capt. Johnston was commissioned in 1993. During his career he has served at Naval Medi¬cal Center San Diego (NMCSD), Naval Hospi¬tal Yokosuka Japan, Marine Barracks Washing¬ton, Presidential Helicopter Squadron One and Naval Health Clinic Hawai’i. He deployed with the USS Constellation Expeditionary Strike Group to the Persian Gulf; 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit; Charlie Surgical Company to Fallujah, Iraq; 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment to Ramadi, Iraq; 3rd Marine Regiment to Haditha, Iraq; and Joint Task Force, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is currently stationed at NMCSD, where he serves as the director for the Naval Center for Combat & Opera-tional Stress Control. He also serves as the specialty leader for Navy clinical psychology.

Academically, Capt. Johnston has published and lectured around the world on treat-ment of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), building resilience in Marines and sailors and transitional interventions for returning warriors. He is currently investigating virtual reality treatments for PTSD, stress injuries in detention operations and use of meditation in substance-abuse treatment.

Capt. Johnston’s awards and decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal (three awards), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Navy Commendation Medal (two awards), Navy Achievement Medal, Iraqi Campaign Medal (Fleet Marine Force), Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal (Fleet Marine Force) and various service and unit awards.

Member at Large: Nathan Ainspan

Nathan D. Ainspan, PhD, has conducted research, written and spoken extensively about the psychological issues impacting wounded and transitioning service members. He is the research psychologist with the Transition to Veterans Program Office (TVPO) of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This office has been tasked with revising the Transition Assistance Program that is a requirement for all service members.  Ainspan’s role is to ensure that the revision of the program is based on behavioral science and psychological research.  His research focus has been on improving civilian employment opportunities for returning service members and the positive impact that employment can have on service members with posttraumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and other injuries. He is editing the “Handbook of Psychosocial Interventions for Veterans” to be published by Oxford University Press in 2015 and has edited “When the Warrior Returns: Making the Transition at Home” and “Returning Wars Wounded, Injured, and Ill:  A Handbook.”

Members at Large

Joel Dubenitz and Christopher Murphy

APA Council Representative

Larry James