About our authors
Thomas F. Oltmanns is the Edgar James Swift Professor Emeritus of Psychological and Brain Sciences in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and his Ph.D. from Stony Brook University. Oltmanns was previously professor of psychology at the University of Virginia (1986 to 2003) and at Indiana University (1976 to 1986). His early research studies were concerned with the role of cognitive and emotional factors in schizophrenia. With grant support from NIA, his lab is conducting a prospective study of personality and health in later life. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Association for Psychological Science and was elected president of the Society for Research in Psychopathology, the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology and the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science. Undergraduate students in psychology have selected him to receive outstanding teaching awards at Washington University and at UVA. In 2011, Oltmanns received the Toy Caldwell-Colbert Award for distinguished educator in clinical psychology from the Society for Clinical Psychology (Division 12 of APA). His other books include Schizophrenia (1980), written with John Neale; Delusional Beliefs (1988), edited with Brendan Maher; and Case Studies in Abnormal Psychology (11th Edition, 2019), written with Michele Martin.
Robert E. Emery is professor of psychology and Director of the Center for Children, Families and the Law at the University of Virginia, where he served as director of Clinical Training for 9 years. In 2017, Emery was honored with the Cavaliers Distinguished Teaching Fellowship, the highest teaching honor awarded at the University of Virginia. Students have repeatedly voted to elect Emery to give the psychology commencement address. He also has been voted “best professor” by psychology students. Emery received a B.A. from Brown University in 1974 and a Ph.D. from SUNY at Stony Brook in 1982. His research focuses on family conflict, children’s mental health, and associated legal issues, particularly divorce mediation and child custody disputes. More recently, he has been involved in genetically informed research of selection into and the consequences of major changes in the family environment. Emery has authored over 150 scientific articles and book chapters. In addition to his teaching awards, he has been honored for Distinguished Contributions to Family Psychology from Division 43 of the American Psychological Association, a Citation Classic from the Institute for Scientific Information, an Outstanding Research Publication Award from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the Distinguished Researcher Award as well as the President’s Award for Distinguished Service from the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation, and several awards and award nominations for his books on divorce: Marriage, Divorce and Children’s Adjustment (2nd Edition, 1998, Sage Publications); Renegotiating Family Relationships: Divorce, Child Custody, and Mediation (2nd Edition, 2011, Guilford Press); The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive (2004, Viking), and Two Homes, One Childhood: A Parenting Plan to Last a Lifetime (2016, Avery). Emery currently is Social Science Editor of Family Court Review. In addition to teaching, research, and administration, he maintains a limited practice as a clinical psychologist and mediator.
Kelsie T. Forbush is professor of psychology and Director of the Center for the Advancement of Research on Eating Behaviors and the Center for Overcoming Problem Eating at the University of Kansas. Forbush is a former ballet dancer who trained at North Carolina School of the Arts, Milwaukee Ballet, and with Lynn Lavin. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2011 after completing a 1-year psychology internship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders and related internalizing-spectrum disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Some of her recent research has focused on creating brief, evidence-based mobile-health interventions to treat eating disorders in university students. Forbush has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters. Her eating disorder assessment tools are widely used throughout healthcare settings and in research contexts. Forbush is the principal investigator on several extramural grants. She currently has funding from the Department of Defense to develop an eating disorder screening tool for use in military-relevant populations and the National Institute of Health to reduce relapse in people leaving intensive treatments for eating disorders. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Eating Disorders (AED) and was named a Rising Star by the American Psychological Society in 2015. Forbush received the Scientific Contribution Award from the Assessment and Diagnosis Special Interest Group of the AED in 2018, 2020 and 2022 and the University Scholarly Achievement Award from the University of Kansas for her work on identify new ways to diagnose and assess eating disorders. In addition to teaching, research, and supervision, she continues to work in a limited capacity with university students with eating disorders through her clinical trials.
Susan C. South is a professor of psychology and Director of Clinical Training at Purdue University. She received her undergraduate degree, master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia under the mentorship of Tom Oltmanns. She completed a 1-year psychology internship at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC, and a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research focuses on the intersection between psychopathology, personality and romantic relationship functioning. She has published on the assessment of relationship satisfaction, the links between mental illness and relationship distress, and gender differences in personality. She also uses behavior genetic methods to examine the etiology of these associations. She has published over 125 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. She currently has funding from the National Institute on Aging to examine adverse interpersonal predictors of cognitive decline and from Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute to examine partner violence before and after the COVID pandemic. She has served on the editorial boards of several journals, and she is currently an Associate Editor at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. She has served on the boards of the Society for Research in Psychopathology and the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science. At Purdue University, she serves on the leadership of the University Senate.
