Three prominent counseling psychologists have joined the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University.
Arpana G. Inman, Beverly Vandiver and Steven Stone-Sabali have brought their considerable experience and scholarship to elevate the work of the college in educating students, conducting research and engaging with the community.
Along with the current dean, Don Pope-Davis, the college now has four counseling psychologists on its faculty.
Arpana G. Inman, most recently from Lehigh University, is now associate dean for the Office of Academic Affairs and a professor of human development and family science. Known for her expertise in multiculturalism and social justice, she serves as chief administrator and academic lead for all aspects of the college’s curriculum, graduate and undergraduate programs. She brings her leadership experience and vision to guide our undergraduate students from their recruitment to their advising, enrichment and graduation.
Within APA, Inman was recently the president of division 17, the Society of Counseling Psychology and is a fellow of that society and of four other APA divisions.
She has produced more than 100 publications addressing topics in counseling such as supervision, social justice, sexual orientation and cultural identity. She serves as series co-editor of APA’s Clinical Supervision Essentials Series and co-host of the video series by the same name. She also co-edited the Handbook of Asian American Psychology.
Inman’s research interests focus on multicultural and social justice issues in mentoring, training and supervision; international issues in psychology; and women of color in leadership.
Her most salient research has been her study of the experience of South Asian Americans, the second largest Asian group in the United States. She has examined their acculturation, perceptions of discrimination, coping, gender roles and other topics related to their well-being. Although as a group they tend to do well economically, Inman has conducted pioneering work that identifies their unique social and emotional challenges.
She has received multiple awards for her work, including from the Society of Counseling Psychology, the Asian American Psychological Association and the Pennsylvania Psychological Association.
In 2018, she received the Janet E. Helms Award for Mentorship and Scholarship, created at Columbia University Teachers College to honor scholars in the fields of psychology and education.
Beverly Vandiver is the college’s director of the Data Access and Analysis Core located in the Office of Research, Innovation and Collaboration. She guides the college’s capacity building in quantitative research. The office focus is on highly customized capacity-building through consultations, training and conferences for students, faculty and staff, the broader university and the field.
Most recently, Vandiver has been named interim director of Ohio State’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. She will split her time between the college and the institute.
Vandiver holds fellow status in three of APA’s divisions: the Society of Counseling Psychology, the Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics Division and the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race. The latter honored her with its 2017 Distinguished Career - Contributions to Research Award.
She is currently editor-in-chief of the Journal of Black Psychology. She also has published and presented widely, most notably in her area of research expertise, which is measurement and scale development, in particular on Black racial identity.
She is recognized as the lead author and developer of the Cross Racial Identity Scale, identified as a best practice in scale development. Recently, as a Buros-Spencer Scholar with the nationally recognized Buros Center for Testing, she consulted in creating its online Socio-Emotional Learning Assessment Technical Guidebook for selecting assessments for K-12 students.
Previously chair of APA’s Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment, Vandiver served as the committee’s liaison to the official U.S. source for evaluation standards, the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation.
She was previously a professor of counseling psychology at Western Michigan University and Pennsylvania State University.
Steven Stone-Sabali is a rising academic who joined the college in mid-2019 as a visiting assistant professor in the School Psychology program. He most recently became the incoming membership chair for APA’s Division on Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology (Division 45).
Stone-Sabali has launched the Culture and Resilience Research Laboratory within the college’s Department of Educational Studies. The lab empirically researches the educational and mental health experiences of individuals of color and mentors undergraduate research assistants from across the university.
Stone-Sabali’s most recent publication appeared in Training and Education in Professional Psychology. He also has published in the Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of Counseling Psychology and the journals Sex Roles and Personality and Individual Differences while studying for his doctorate with Professor Kevin Cokley of the University of Texas – Austin.
In addition, his dissertation on the characteristics of white anti-racist individuals was nominated for the University of Texas Graduate School’s Outstanding Dissertation Award and won the endowed Benjamin and Dorothy Fruchter Centennial Award for Excellence in Educational Psychology Research at the Doctoral Level.
