Welcome to EPA 2023 from President Flores

Greetings Eastern Psychological Association! 

I want to begin by thanking our Past-President Bonnie Green for her unwavering leadership, inspiration, and positivity as she spearheaded the Association’s work on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)  and worked tirelessly with the Program Committee and Board as we transitioned our annual meeting from its virtual platform to our first in-person annual meeting in New York City this past March 2022 after 2 years . In my presidential year, I will continue to advance the DEI efforts started under Bonnie to ensure diversity in our membership and recruitment for program committee members; advocate for the development of a Strategic Plan to serve as a blueprint to advance the mission of the Association over the next five years, and support open communication between the membership and the Association.

As I begin my 2023 presidency, I am reminded of the many men and women who came before me and on whose shoulders, I stand, and I want to thank them. Although the times have changed, and the challenges are great, the remaining constant for the field and the Association is society’s need for access to state-of-the-art psychological research and its application to address complex problems. Throughout my career as a Developmental Psychologist, I have been committed to engaging in research and scholarship that has informed best practices and policies and contributed to the positive well-being of children, youth, and families. So, this year, given the challenges that have affected the lives of children and youth over the last several years, from COVID-19 to climate change to gun violence, I am dedicating my presidency to them.  

As I look forward to the next year, I am reminded of why I joined EPA as a student and my first meeting.   The conference was student-friendly, welcoming, and intimate and allowed me to be in the company of many of the scholars and researchers I had read about in my textbooks. It was like a rock concert for Psychologists!  Later, after becoming a faculty member, EPA provided me with the opportunity to accompany my students to a conference I had come to love and wished for them to experience.

Over this year, I will continue to build on our past successes with a commitment to our mission and an eye toward our future. I will begin a Presidential blog post highlighting how advances in psychological science can be used to address some of society's most pressing problems. We will also explore publishing a newsletter to highlight the past and present work of the Association. This is a really exciting time for the Association, and I look forward to hearing from all of you as we work to use our science to build a better future for our children, youth, field, and society.