Janet E. Helms, PH.D. is the Augustus Long Professor of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College and founding director of the Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture at Boston College. She is a Fellow in Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) and Division 45 (Ethnic Diversity) of the American Psychological Association (APA) and is a representative to Council, APA’s governing body.

Dr. Helms is associate editor of the Journal of Counseling Psychology and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Psychological Assessment, and the Journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. She has written over fifty empirical and theoretical articles and four books on the topics of racial identity and cultural influences on assessment and counseling practice. Her Books include A Race Is a Nice Thing To Have, and Using Race and Culture in Counseling and Psychotherapy: Theory and Process (with Donelda Cook).

Dr. Helms has been acknowledged for her work with awards which include an engraved brick in Iowa State University’s Plaza of Heroines, the “Distinguished Career Contributions to Research” award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues, and the Leona Tyler Award for a distinguished research career, awarded by Division 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology). In 1991 she was the first annual recipient of the “Janet E. Helms Award for Mentoring and Scholarship in Professional Psychology.” This award was inaugurated in her honor by Columbia University Teachers College.

Dr. James M. Jones is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Black American Studies Program at the Universality of Delaware, and former Director of the Minority Fellowship Program at the American Psychological Association. Dr. Jones earned a BA from Oberlin College an MA from Temple University; and his Ph.D. in social psychology from Yale University. He was been on the faculty of the Psychology and Social Relations Department at Harvard University, and has taught in the Psychology Department at Howard University.

He published the first edition of Prejudice and racism in 1972, and the second edition in 1997. He is currently working on a new book, Beyond prejudice and racism: The Challenge of Diversity in Everyday Life with Jack Dovidio and Deborah Coates Vietze. In 1973, Dr. Jones spent a year in Trinidad & Tobago on a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship studying Calypso humor. This work led to the development of the TRIOS model of the Psychology of African American culture.

Dr. Jones is a social psychologist, and serves on several editorial boards including the Journal of Black Psychology, and is past-President of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. He was awarded the 1999 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority, the 2001 Kurt Lewin Award by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division 9), and the 2004 Distinguished Psychologist Award by the Association of Black Psychologists.