Editor's column

Hello! Welcome to Fall edition of The Military Psychologist. I am the new editor for this exciting publication, and I wanted to take a moment to thank LTC Melba Stetz for her help as I transitioned into this role.

As a bit of background about myself, I am a senior research psychologist working for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. I have been with AFRL since 2005, and recently I had the privilege of serving as program officer for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research in Arlington, Virginia, where I started a basic research portfolio in the area of trust and influence. The D.C. area was both rewarding and challenging at the same time, and it afforded me the opportunity to work among many service partners and other government agencies. What an amazing experience! However, I ultimately decided to return to Ohio and to one of my passions—research.

My goals as the editor for this publication are as follows:

• To provide timely feedback to potential authors;
• To publish an impactful and effective newsletter to Div. 19 readers;
• To be responsive to Div. 19 needs and interests.

As a way to try to keep the newsletter engaging and responsive, I would like to introduce two new sections: Trends and Spotlight on Military Psychologists. The Trends section will focus on communicating novel approaches to clinical practice, sharing recent discoveries in the research domain, and discussing emerging patterns either globally or based on contemporary battlefield domains. Essentially, I would like the Trends section to be a forum for communicating novel ideas, practices, and patterns that should be of interest to Div. 19 readers. The Spotlight on Military Psychologists will be a forum for military psychologists to share parts of their story with Div. 19 in an effort to increase awareness and community within Div. 19. If you have any questions about either new section, please don't hesitate to contact me.

I also wanted to announce that due to low submissions, we have decided to end the Spotlight on Pedagogy. A big thank-you goes out to Steve Truhon for his support of the newsletter as the editor for that section. Another thank-you goes out to Nathan Ainspan for his role as the editor for the feature articles. While Nathan will no longer be the editor for the feature articles, he will still be involved with the newsletter as the APA program chair.

So let's take a quick look at the current issue. We'll start with a message from our president of Div. 19, Kathryn Lindsey, PhD. Lindsey discusses the importance of communication for Div. 19. She recognizes our role as military psychologists as being unique both in intent and in the challenges we face as a community. Patrick DeLeon provides an interesting perspective on the challenges of modern-day health care. We recognize three winners of the Div. 19 writing contest: Congratulations to (1) Emily Brooks (University of Pennsylvania) for “A Healthy Dose of Dissociation”; (2) Jeremy Jinkerson (Fielding Graduate University) for “Moral Injury as a New Normal in the Modern Wars”; and (3) Laura Neely ( Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences ), Jennifer Tucker ( Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences) , CPT Jamie Carreno (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research), COL Geoffrey Grammer ( National Intrepid Center of Excellence) , and Marjan Ghahramanlou-Holloway ( Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences ) for “Suicide Risk Assessment and Management Guidance for Military Psychologists.” Finally, we have an interesting research article by Kara Orvis (Aptima) and Arwen DeCostanza (Army Research Laboratory) that describes a study to evaluate unobtrusive measures of team states using dialogue acts.

Happy reading.