Andrés Pérez-Rojas has been named a fellow with the American Psychological Association.

Fellowship within the APA is a special distinction for members who have received a doctoral degree in psychology or a related field from a regionally accredited institution and can show evidence of unusual and outstanding contributions in the field of psychology. Pérez-Rojas, an associate professor in Counseling and Educational Psychology, became a fellow through two divisions of the APA: Division 17, representing the subdiscipline of counseling psychology, and Division 29, representing psychotherapy. Each division of the APA represents an interest group of its members and includes work with scholarly journals and conferences. 

Besides his extensive work with both divisions, Pérez-Rojas recently published an article with a former student taking the field to task for how the concept of “cultural comfort” is discussed, as well as how it is similar and different from another important concept, countertransference. He also published an article with colleagues on structural competency, or the ability to recognize and address how social, economic, and political structures influence health and psychotherapy outcomes, a new area of research for him.

“I and all the people who wrote letters of support worked really hard when we were putting together the nomination, and it’s just a profound honor to be recognized as having made unusual and outstanding contributions in psychology on a national scale (by being named a fellow),” Pérez-Rojas said.