At the 2011 APS Annual General Meeting, Emeritus Professor Graham Davidson and Adjunct Associate Professor Amanda Gordon were elected as Honorary Fellows of the APS – the highest recognition the Society can offer – for their extraordinary and distinguished contributions to the advancement of psychology and the APS.
Adjunct Associate Professor Amanda Gordon
Amanda Gordon has had a distinguished career as a clinical and health psychologist for more than three decades. She graduated from Adelaide University in 1978 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours. During 1980 to 1982 she was enrolled as a PhD student studying the psychological assessment of chronic pain at the University of Birmingham. On returning to Australia in 1982, Amanda went into clinical psychology practice, and has been in private practice since 1984. She is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Canberra.
Amanda has been masterful in presenting the psychology profession to the public through appearances on radio and television. This has included regular appearances on ABC radio over many years, and the weekly appearances on Network Ten's Monday to Friday, together with regular appearances on other radio and television programs.
Amanda has been a member of the Detention Health Expert Advisory Group to the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship since its inception in 2006. She is recognised as a key person in bringing a focus on Indigenous Australian issues within the APS. In 2008, Amanda Gordon launched the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association under the auspices of the APS, which was the culmination of work that she had been involved in since 1996 when she joined the NSW Reconciliation Council.
From 1984 Amanda held significant positions within the APS College of Clinical Psychologists. In 2002-2004 she was Vice-President of the Society, and was elected President of the Society in September 2004, a position she held until September 2008.
During her period as a Director and as President Amanda was responsible for several outstanding initiatives which have been important for the presentation of psychology and its contributions to the wider community. They include the founding of National Psychology Week, raising community awareness of the contributions of psychologists to the community; the establishment of the Bendi Lango Foundation for the provision of bursaries to Indigenous postgraduate psychology students; and the APS Strategic Leaders Program sponsoring collaborative projects that provide future leadership for the psychology profession.
Emeritus Professor Graham Davidson
Graham Davidson has enjoyed a distinguished career as a university teacher and researcher. He started his career as a primary school teacher before completing his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at the University of Queensland in the 1960s/70s. Graham held academic appointments at the University of New England, Darwin Institute of Technology and Northern Territory University before being appointed Foundation Professor of Psychology at Central Queensland University in 1997. His academic record includes regular grants over a period stretching from 1973 to recent times, including grants both for research and for teaching, five authored and edited books, and over 100 chapters and journal articles.
Graham has held a number of important leadership positions at tertiary institutions including Darwin Institute of Technology, Northern Territory University, Central Queensland University, Shafston Institute of Technology and Shafston International College, and the Australian College of Natural Medicine. He has made a significant contribution to the regulation of the profession of psychology as an Inaugural Member of the Northern Territory Psychologists Registration Board between 1986 and 1990, as a Member of the Psychologists Board of Queensland between 2002 and 2004.
Graham has made an enormous range of contributions to the APS over a long period. He has held a large number of APS Branch positions and has served on numerous APS committees and working parties such as the Publications Committee and the Working Party on Testing and Assessment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Graham was Editor of the Australian Psychologist from 1989 to 1996, and Inaugural Editor of APS Imprint Books from 1994 to 1995. Graham was Chair of the APS Ethics Committee from 1997 to 2000. In 1997, Graham was elected Director of Communications on the APS Board, and in 2001 he was elected Director of Social Issues. All three of these latter appointments were in his areas of interest and, as a consequence, he enjoyed a high level of credibility and was able to promote the importance of ethics and social issues as major responsibilities for the profession.