2020 Election of Officers & Regional Representatives

The election this year includes the offices of President-Elect, Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General, and several Regional Representatives. The Standing Committee on Elections (President, Past-President and President-Elect as per our constitution) compiled the following list of candidates based on nominations from members of IACCP and direct solicitations. This year this meant that the President and the President-Elect formed the committee, as Past President Fons van de Vijver had passed away in early June. The ballot solely encompasses members in good standing, who were nominated from among the membership of IACCP; no nomination was rejected by the committee.

Please vote online by March 31, 2020. Election results will be reported at the General Meeting in July 2020 and on the IACCP website.

Step 1. For President-Elect, Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General click on the IACCP Officers link below. (All members can cast a vote). After casting your vote, you will be redirected here to continue to Step 2. below.

Step 2. For voting for your regional representative select your region from the list (You can only vote in the region you are registered for)


Biographical statements by candidates appear below.

Jump to: President-Elect | Secretary-GeneralDeputy Secretary-General | East Asia | Insular Pacific | North America (USA) | Sub-Saharan Africa | Europe 1

Note: Voting eligibility

Members in good standing, Honorary Members, and sponsored Members may vote. Members must have​ paid their annual dues, and sponsored Members must have received their sponsorship, by February 1 of the year of the election as indicated in the IACCP Constitution. (Clause 2.4.3)

Information About the Officers to be Elected

President-Elect

The current President is Klaus Boehnke of Jacobs University Bremen, Germany; the President-Elect is Colleen Ward of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zeeland.

The duties of the President are:

  1. Call and preside over all meetings of the Executive Council and all General and Extraordinary General Meetings of the Association.
  2. Approve the agenda that is prepared by the Secretary‑General for all meetings of the Executive Council and for all General and Extraordinary General Meetings of the Association.
  3. Serve as Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Elections.
  4. Serve on committees as specified elsewhere in the Bylaws.

The duties of the President-Elect are:

  1. Carry out the President's duties in the absence of the President; and in the absence of both the President and the resident‑Elect the Executive Council shall choose one of its other members to carry out the President's duties.
  2. Serve on the Standing Committee on Elections and serve as Chairperson of the Witkin/Okonji Award Sub‑committee.
  3. Serve on committees as specified elsewhere in the Bylaws.

The duties of the Immediate Past‑President are:

  1. Serve as Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Awards.
  2. Serve on committees as specified elsewhere in the Bylaws.

The terms of office of the three Presidents are two years.

Secretary-General

The current Secretary-General is Márta Fülöp of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

The duties of the Secretary-General are:

Responsibility for the administration of the Association, including but not limited to: prepare all meeting agenda as set in consultation with the President; send notices of General, Extraordinary General, and Executive Council Meetings; record and keep the minutes of these meetings; conduct postal or electronic (online) ballots as needed; supervise the Treasurer; and supervise the Membership Coordinator.

Reporting to the General Meeting on behalf of the Executive Council giving an account of the main activities in the Association since the previous General Meeting.

Serving as Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Membership and Professional Standards.

Sharing equal legal authority over and access to all banking, financial, and accounting records and assets of the Association with the Treasurer.

Sharing equal access to the membership records of the Association with the Treasurer.

Serving on committees as specified elsewhere in the Bylaws.

The term of office of the Secretary-General is four years and may serve two terms.

Deputy Secretary-General

The current Deputy Secretary General is Saba Safdar of Guelph University, Canada.

The duties of the Deputy Secretary General are:

  1. Assist the Secretary‑General in the general administration of the Association and perform such other duties and functions as may be assigned by the Executive Council.
  2. Serve as Chairperson the Harry and Pola Triandis Doctoral Thesis Award selection committee.
  3. Serve on committees as specified elsewhere in the Bylaws.

The term of office of the Deputy Secretary-General is two years and may serve two terms.

Regional Representatives

The duties of Regional Representatives are:

  1. Be responsible for promoting the work of the Association in their respective Regions.
  2. Act as liaison between the Executive Council and the organizers of all IACCP‑sponsored conferences in their Region.
  3. Serve on the Program Committee for all IACCP sponsored conferences in their Region.
  4. Serve on the Harry and Pola Triandis Doctoral Thesis Award selection committee.
  5. Develop and encourage activities in their Regions.
  6. Report to the Association on activities undertaken in their Region to promote IACCP.

Regional Representatives serve for four year terms and may be elected for up to two consecutive terms.


 

Biographical Statements by Candidates

Jump to: President-Elect | Secretary-General | Deputy Secretary-General | East Asia | Insular Pacific | North America | Sub-Saharan Africa | Europe

President-Elect (2 candidates)

Candidate 1 - William Gabrenya

Biographical Information

William Gabrenya is a professor of social and cultural psychology at the Florida Institute of Technology, USA, where he teaches cross-cultural, social, and political psychology classes and conducts research on expatriate performance and modernization. IACCP has been his professional and intellectual home throughout his career. He served as Editor of the Cross-Cultural Psychology Bulletin for 18 years and in 1995 set up the IACCP website, serving as Webmaster until 2019. In 2000, he was appointed Chair of the Communication and Publications Committee, then in 2008 he was elected Secretary-General. A few of his contributions over this time include revising the IACCP Constitution, creating the Triandis Award with Rolando Diaz-Loving and Shalom Schwarz, reestablishing IACCP as tax exemption corporation with Sharon Glazer, initiating a reconciliation with “cultural psychology,” conceptualizing what later became Walt Lonner’s Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, and producing the first 7 e-book editions of IACCP’s Congress proceedings. Since 2016, his primary involvement has been with transitioning IACCP’s Internet and IT functions to a commercial organization.

Vision Statement

My vision for how IACCP can prosper is guided by my conception that IACCP is an unusual scientific society in its role as vanguard of a social/intellectual movement, focusing not just on traditional scientific discourse, but also on establishing intercultural scientific relationships, proselytizing all things cultural, and facilitating inclusivity with respect to our majority world colleagues. The Association now faces many challenges concerning its relevance in an evolving field, current and future finances, member commitment, and effectiveness of its communication functions. As president, I would focus on: (1) enhancing our sense of community by improving communication, a critical component of which is developing a successor medium to the Bulletin; (2) improving our finances through careful investment of reserves and the creation of a foundation to fund our outreach efforts; (3) providing services to the field through our intellectual and communication resources; (4) expanding educational programs beyond the successful C&P School; (5) assuring that our activities are attractive to our youngest members; and (6) maintaining the quality of our amazing conferences.

 

Candidate 2 - Michele Gelfand

Biographical Information

Michele Gelfand is Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Gelfand uses field, experimental, computational and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture and its multilevel consequences. Her work has been published in Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Nature Human behavior, the JPSP, Journal of Applied Psychology, among others. Gelfand is the founding co-editor of the Advances in Culture and Psychology annual series (Oxford University Press). Her book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World was published by Scribner in 2018. She received the 2016 Diener award from SPSP the 2017 Outstanding International Psychologist Award from the APA, the 2019 Outstanding Cultural Psychology Award from SPSP, the 2019 Science-Practitioner award from SIOP, and the Anneliese Maier Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Vision Statement

IACCP is my favorite intellectual home. If elected President, I aspire to lead in the spirit that the late Harry Triandis would have done, namely to continue to build an inclusive culture where people from all over the globe feel welcomed and supported, and where our intellectual tent includes broad interdisciplinary approaches to culture, from lab and field studies, to computational models, neuroscience, and big data. I also aim to build more bridges between scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers to collaborate on using our science to address pressing global concerns such as migration to climate change.

Secretary-General (2 candidates)

Candidate 1 - Márta Fülöp

Biographical Information

Márta Fülöp, PhD, DSc (Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) is the head of the Social and Cultural Psychology Research Group and a scientific advisor in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre of Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.  She is also a professor of social psychology and the head of the Social Interaction: Competition and Cooperation Research Group in the Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. She is the Secretary of International Affairs of the Hungarian Psychological Association and also editor-in-chief of the biggest Hungarian journal in psychological sciences, the Hungarian Review of Psychology.  She has extensive international/cross-cultural experience. She was fellow of the Japan Foundation in Sendai, Japan, visiting professor in Kansai University, Japan.  She was Lindsey Fellow in the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, USA and visiting professor since 2013 in the University of International Business and Economy in Beijing, China. She has been member of the Executive Committee of the Children’s Identity and Citizenship in Europe Socrates Academic Network/Jean Monnet Network since 1998 to 2017. Her main research topic is the psychology of competition also in cross-cultural perspective.

Vision Statement

I have been a member of IACCP for two decades, since 1999. I was the main organizer of the 9th regional conference of IACCP in Budapest in 2003. I served in several different functions the organization i.e. I was member of the EC as a representative of Europe for several years, also served two consecutive terms as Deputy Secretary General and currently I am Secretary General of IACCP.  Over these years I have gained experience and insight about the main goals of the association, the organizational functioning and also have had the honor to get to know many of the members of the association in collaborative research work as well as in many other different functions. In the last 4 years, as secretary general, my responsibilities increased significantly and I tried to do my best to meet them.  My goal for the coming four years—if I get the opportunity—besides fulfilling all my duties to my best is to increase the membership of the association, to make it even more attractive than now for a young generation of researchers in order to keep the continuity what the founders started. I think that the IACCP community has an enormous intellectual and human potential and I will try to promote all activities in my function as officer that help this potential be used in the most effective way.

Candidate 2 - David Lackland Sam

Biographical Information

David Lackland SAM (PhD) is professor of cross-cultural psychology at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is the immediate past-president of the International Academy for Intercultural Research (IAIR), and a past deputy-secretary general of the IACCP. Sam is a first-generation Ghanaian-Norwegian who migrated to Norway soon after obtaining a B.Sc. degree in psychology at the University of Ghana. He teaches courses in cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychiatry. His main research interest is in psychology of acculturation, where he has published extensively.  His 2016 book – The Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology, 2nd ed. received the 2017 outstanding book award from IAIR. His latest book, a 4-volume Cross-cultural psychology anthology, was published in 2018 by Routledge. He co-edited both books with Professor emeritus John W. Berry.

Vision Statement

My first meeting with IACCP was the Regional Congress of the association in 1991 in Debrecen, Hungary.  I became a member of the association in 1992, and have remained a member since. I believe IACCP is the best professional organization in the world dedicated to expanding the horizon of psychological theory, research and practice beyond the borders of Western Industrialized countries. As such, I have tried to make an impact through serving on the board. I have previously served as European Representative and as the Deputy Secretary General. I want to continue contributing by serving as your Secretary General, where one of my goals is to make the association more international, and to support regions of the world where psychology is still predominantly a western enterprise.

Deputy Secretary-General (2 candidates)

Candidate 1 - Anat Bardi

Biographical Information

Anat Bardi received her PhD in 2000 from the Hebrew University, followed by postdoctoral training in the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first permanent academic job was in the University of Kent, and she is now a full Professor in Royal Holloway University of London. She served as Editor in Chief of the section Personality and Social Psychology in Frontiers in Psychology, where she increased the number of cross-cultural psychologists in the Editorial Board. Her research interests are in cultural and personal values, published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and others. Some of her best papers materialized thanks to collaborations that started at the IACCP conference, which she attends regularly.

Vision Statement

IACCP has been my home association since the early days of my PhD. I deeply care about this association and would be honored to work to advance its impact further through sponsoring more training activities partly through webinars, more small group meetings, as we have been doing annually in the UK and I will host next, through teaching, and more media presence. I believe that it is important to teach cross-cultural psychology already in early stages of the academic degree, as I have been doing, so that our students will approach later mainstream topics and their future work with cross-cultural understanding. An important route for impact to work on is in being more present in the media and social media, to educate the public.  I would be happy to work on all these routes and others, as part of the IACCP team.

Candidate 2 - Matthew Easterbrook

Biographical Information

Matt Easterbrook completed his PhD at the University of Sussex, UK in 2013 under the supervision of Vivian Vignoles. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sussex and then Cardiff University before being appointed as Lecturer in Psychology at Sussex in 2015, and then Senior Lecturer in 2019. Matt is an associate editor at the European Journal of Social Psychology, and helped organize and is an active participant of the Culture and Psychology Group for cross-cultural psychologists in the UK. He is a core member of the Culture and Identity Research Network, led by Vivian Vignoles, and works closely with Vignoles and Peter Smith on numerous cross-cultural projects investigating self, identity, and group processes across cultures. He is an active member of IACCP and has been stream leader at three previous IACCP summer schools (Nagoya 2016, Guelph 2018, San Jose 2019).

Vision Statement

I am delighted to be a candidate for the position of deputy secretary general of IACCP. I am passionate and committed to promoting the development of junior cross-cultural researchers, as my involvement as stream leader in the last three IACCP summer schools demonstrates. As a result of this, I am now mentoring two winners of the inaugural Kwok Leung prize, which supports two participants of the summer school to develop a research project conceived at the summer school. As a PhD student myself, I was an active contributor to the IACCP Next-Generation group for junior cross-cultural researchers. The role of deputy secretary general provides an excellent opportunity for me to continue to pursue my passion of supporting and developing junior cross-cultural researchers.


 

Regional Representatives

East Asia (3 candidates)

Candidate 1 - Emma Buchtel

Biographical Information

Emma Buchtel is an Assistant professor at the Department of Psychology of Education University of Hong Kong, researching Chinese morality, values, and cross-cultural communication. She received her PhD (Social/Personality Psychology) from the University of British Columbia, and her B.A. from Yale University; in between, she spent four years in Mainland China. She is the Hong Kong Regional Representative for the Asian Association for Social Psychology, Associate Editor for the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, and a longtime member of the USA-based Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Vision Statement

The IACCP has a unique role to play in our field as a global forum for promoting and improving research into both cultural diversity and cross-cultural similarities. As the IACCP’s East Asia regional representative, I would be excited to increase the IACCP’s online profile within our region, while cognizant of the unique challenges of finding common online communication forums in the Greater China region. I would also seek synergy between the IACCP and other psychology organizations, especially the Asian Association for Social Psychology, to help promote our journals and research into cross-cultural psychology globally.

Candidate 2 -Alex English

Biographical Sketch

Alex English is an American who has been living in China for over twelve years. Dr. English completed his Ph.D. in Cultural Psychology at Zhejiang University and now is a Research Fellow at the Intercultural Institute at Shanghai International Studies University. He has served as the Student Rep to the EC (2016-2018) and serves on the IACCP Culture & Psychology Summer School organizing committee. Dr. English is also active in the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP) and the International Academy of Intercultural Research (IAIR).

Vision Statement

It is with great honor that I express my sincere interest to serve as the Regional East Asia Representative of IACCP. As previous student representative, I can honestly admit it has opened my eyes and has been an extremely rewarding to volunteer in such capacity. Now, I hope I can help expand IACCP’s presence in East Asia by representing the wonderful people and vast opportunities this organization has to offer. I hope my cross-cultural experiences and multilingual ability will bring a unique and new perspective to the IACCP executive committee. I hope to be an active voice for all members from East Asia and other parts of the world.

Candidate 3 -Minoru Karasawa

Biographical Information

Minoru Karasawa received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1991 and has been a full professor at Nagoya University since 2007. His main research interest is social cognition, and culture plays a prominent role in his many works. Examples can be found in his research concerning the relationship between language and person perception, the emergent nature of culture-specific social categorizations, and etic-emic aspects of national attitudes including patriotism and nationalism. In 2016 he served as the Organizing Committee Chair for the 23rd International Congress held in Nagoya, Japan.

Vision Statement

The East Asian region has long played a vital role not merely as a data point for the psychological science of culture but also as a source of profound theoretical perspective. Following the rising self-recognition of their importance, the body of psychological researchers in East Asia has grown rapidly in recent years. As a regional representative, I will continuously seek ways to bring high-quality research by East Asian scholars to the international arena. Facilitating international networking and collaborations among researchers is an integral part of this pursuit.

Insular Pacific (2 candidates)

Candidate 1 - Julie Lee

Biographical Sketch

Julie Lee is the Founding Director of the Centre for Human and Cultural Values at the University of Western Australia. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and worked at the University of Hawaii and University of Miami before returning to Australia. She has published several books and articles in leading journals (e.g., Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Assessment, Journal of Personality Assessment). Her research focuses on values theory, measurement and application. Recently, her focus is on value-behavior relations across the lifespan.

Vision Statement

IACCP has been my academic home since first joining as a doctoral student in the mid 1990’s. My publications focus on human and cultural values and their application across a wide range of phenomenon. I recently founded the Centre for Human and Cultural Values at the University of Western Australia to promote collaborative work in this area. By serving as a regional representative I hope to enhance cross-cultural research, promote the awareness of and discourse on cross-cultural differences with the aim of increasing cultural sensitivity and tolerance.  I am very keen to promote the IACCP and to encourage more IACCP-sponsored activities in my region.

Statement

My area of specialization is cross-cultural psychology and my interests include social values, beliefs, ethnic stereotypes, organization.

Candidate 2 - Jaimee Stuart

Biographical Information

Jaimee Stuart is a Cross-cultural and Developmental Psychologist located at the School of Applied Psychology at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Her work broadly examines social issues with a focus on research application such as multiculturalism, social cohesion, migration, positive development for minority communities, as well as family relationships, bullying, technology use, and mental health. She is Associate Editor for the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Treasurer of the Australasian Human Development Association, and Adjunct to the Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington.

Vision Statement

As regional representative for the Insular Pacific I would bring a large range of networks within and insight into intercultural relations and cross-cultural psychology across Australasia. I have a long history with the association and its representatives and understand the importance of voicing the perspective of our region on the international stage. In this role I would aim to ensure that the diversity of both the peoples and the researchers in our region are represented and that, in turn, the association is promoted among my peers.

 

North America (USA) (2 candidates)

Candidate 1 - Gail Ferguson

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Gail Ferguson is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on modern forms of cultural transmission among youth/families (e.g., remote acculturation and remote enculturation), which are facilitated by 21st Century globalization avenues such as media and migration. A 2016 American Psychological Association Outstanding Early Career Psychologist, Gail publishes in JCCP and IJIR as well as developmental and regional journals. She has also co-authored chapters in the Cambridge and Oxford Acculturation Handbooks. She has been an IACCP member for 7+ years and considers IACCP a professional home.

Vision Statement

I would be honored to represent and support the contributions and needs of IACCP’s North American members. In addition to working on constituency-driven issues, I would be particularly interested in strategically developing IACCP’s leadership on the psychology of cultural globalization for individuals, families, and societies. I also see great potential for more applications of cross-cultural psychology to address real-world problems, especially developmental and inter/transdisciplinary approaches. Finally, for training and coherent progress of our field, I would encourage a group effort to map parallel/complementary lines of research whose nomenclature differs across regions.

Candidate 2 -Joni Sasaki

Biographical Information

Joni Sasaki received her PhD in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and currently is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Director of the Culture and Religion Lab at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. In her work, she uses an integrated biological and socio-cultural approach to conduct basic psychological research on multiple forms of diversity—including ethnic, religious, and biological diversity—in the areas of social cognition and social behavior. Her early research investigated the individual, situational, and cultural moderators of religion’s effects, and more recently her lab has examined multiculturalism, cultural mixing, and perceptions of culture and race.

Vision Statement

My vision for cross-cultural psychology is to increase interdisciplinary perspectives to expand the breadth of the field, while at the same time, strengthening theoretical frameworks to move the field forward. Researchers should foster cross-discipline collaborations to not only deepen the impact of their own work, but also demonstrate the utility of a cross-cultural approach in areas that are of increasing global importance, such as geopolitics, global economics, and sustainability. We should also build on the rich existing frameworks in our field to form new unifying theories that address basic questions on what constitutes culture, the processes of cultural influence, and the nature of cultural change over time.

Sub-Saharan Africa (3 candidates)

Candidate 1 - Collins Badu Agyemang

Biographical Information

Collins Badu Agyemang (PhD) is a licensed Organizational Psychologist and Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Ghana. He is also the Coordinator for the Pan-African Doctoral Academy. He has passionate interest in researching and promoting issues of cross-cultural relevance. He has supported and attended IACCP major conferences. He is the National Vice President and a distinguished Executive Board Member of the Ghana Psychological Association. He has been serving as an ambassador and public educator on mental health issues. He is also the lead Psychologist for Ghana Education Service sponsored National Science and Maths Quiz. He has for the past six years supported membership drive from some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. He teaches courses in psychology with laden contents of cross-cultural psychology.

Vision Statement

I have followed IACCP since 2010 but the 22nd Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, held in Reims, France in 2014 shaped my view on the relevance of culture and context in understanding and applying psychology. I am convinced that IACCP is the most credible association-based organization with the goal of extending psychological research and applications beyond the borders of respective theorists or researchers. In the last IACCP Conference held in Canada, representation from Ghana and other African Countries was encouraging. It is my goal to support membership drive from the Sub-Saharan region. As part of this initiative, I am ready to co-chair and organize a regional conference in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2021, of which interest has been expressed to IACCP leadership. I intend using such momentum toward the conference and accruing social capital of researchers to promote awareness, encourage scholarship and research drive in the area of cross-cultural psychology.

Candidate 2 -Moses Chung

Biographical Sketch

Moses Chung, Cameroonian age 46 (20 years of teaching experience at all levels) holds a Masters Degree in Psychology from the Douala University where he is registered for PhD. A holder of a Second Cycle Teacher Trainer Diploma from the University of Bamenda, member of the CPA (Cameroon Psychological Association) and of the IACCP since 2009. He is the Divisional Adviser of Pedagogy for Upper Plateaux Division in Cameroon. A consultant psychologist for the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Society For Promotion Of Initiatives In Sustainable Development And Welfare. He has published articles related to cross-cultural conflicts and presently developing a Fused Afro-Eurocentric Cultural Personality Inventory For Cameroon.

Vision Statement

Extremely grateful for my nomination. If you vote for me, i will redirect the scientific activities of the IACCP during my term of office towards the following: (1) Creating greater awareness of the mission of the IACCP across the sub region especially in Francophone Africa. (2) Awakening research in Mixed Afro-Eurocentric Cultural Personalities in the sub region especially as to how these are responsible for fueling wars and conflicts in the region. (3) Reigniting the desire for students across member countries to take cultural psychology as options in universities, organize regional conferences during my mandate. (4) Encourage psychology departments to start teaching units in cross-cultural studies. (5) Encourage the creation of psychological associations and certification boards in Africa.

Candidate 3 -Harrun Garrashi

Biographical Information

Harrun H. Garrashi is a Lecturer in Psychology at Pwani University in Kilifi, Kenya. He also coordinates the BA Psychology program at Pwani University. Born and raised in Kenya, he holds BA Anthropology degree, an MA Psychology degree, and is currently completing his PhD Psychology degree at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is also the current African region representative for the World Association of Personality Psychology (WAPP). His research topics include, among others, (1) mapping the eastern Africa personality structure, (2) constructing an indigenous Swahili personality inventory, and (3) adultery and incest among the Mijikenda people of east Africa.

Vision Statement

For a long time, psychological research has been dominated by Euro-American perspectives to an extent that we apply these perspectives globally without hesitation. The world is not only Europe and America, nor do American-European cultural systems represent a global culture. As Murray and Kluckhohn once noted, ‘each person is, in certain respects, like all other persons, like some other persons, and like no other person’, it is my belief that Europe and America does not provide a global representative sample when studying human psychology and therefore this 21st century should be the century of cross-cultural psychology. As an Anthropologist-Psychologist I stand for cross-cultural approach to psychological phenomena. As a representative of sub-Saharan Africa within the IACCP, I will endeavor to advocate for a cross-culturally oriented psychology. That as much as we acknowledge the universal nature of humanity, our behaviors are not just a function of our biology but also products of our cultures. And since our cultures are different from those of outside Africa, then psychological science stands to benefit a lot if we pay attention to these other cultures. That way we will have a global psychological science that is devoid of assumptions and unwarranted generalizations.

Europe 1 (3 candidates)

Candidate 1 - Lubna Ahmed

Biographical Information

Lubna Ahmed is a research-active senior lecturer at St Mary’s University, London. She has BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences, two Psychology MScs and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology. Her current interests can be summarized into the following themes; Visual attention, Cross-cultural differences in cognition, and pedagogical academic performance search. She has been awarded several JSPS grants to continue her UK-Japan cultural comparative work. In 2017, she launched a cross cultural research cluster. The cluster investigates minority groups and HE achievements, cultural variations in social cognition such as expression and body language, and the emotional impact when working in multicultural teams.

Vision Statement

I am passionate about cultural differences and how they can affect cognitive psychological processes, from research, teaching, and applied societal aspects. As an active researcher in the area I maintain up to date discipline knowledge, and in my teaching capacity I am in a position to disseminate the ideologies and recommendations. I have presented at IACCP in the past, I am a regular reader of the association’s Journal, and as a regional rep would very much like to contribute to the association’s development and promotion. I am a current member of the institutional ethics committee, and have acted as a BPS regional rep in the past. Thus, I am experienced and capable of fulfilling the duties.

Candidate 2 -Nicolas Geeraert

Biographical Sketch

Nicholas Geeraert a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Essex (UK), and affiliated to the Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research at Victoria University (NZ). He obtained his degree in Psychology from Ghent University (Belgium), and his PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Louvain, at Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). His main research interests are acculturative stress, adaptation, identity, and cultural distance in sojourners and migrant families. His research relies on cross-sectional, longitudinal, dyadic and experimental methods. He collaborates with colleagues in the UK, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, the US, China, and Thailand.

Vision Statement

I have been a member of IACCP for over a decade. I am a regular reviewer for JCCP and other journals (incl. Psych Sci, JPSP, IJIR), and have contributed to the scientific committee for IACCP conferences. I was a summer school teacher for IACCP in Nagoya (2016), and for IAIR in Shanghai (2019). I was instrumental in creating a UK platform for cross-cultural psychologists. My goals for IACCP are to (a) represent European cross-cultural researchers, (b) further consolidate the training and capacity building for PhD students and researchers from developing countries, and (c) increase network opportunities for members both globally and regionally.

Candidate 3 - Alexander Tatarko

Biographical Sketch

Alexander Tatarko (Doctor of Sciences) is Professor and Leading Research Fellow at the Center for Sociocultural Research of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. He has published 8 books and over 140 articles (in Russian and English) in the areas of cross-cultural and social psychology. He has participated in the implementation of intercultural relations and ethnic tolerance training in the North Caucasus of Russia. His main research interests are intercultural relations and social capital in multicultural society [https://www.hse.ru/en/org/persons/66965].

Vision Statement

My mission is to facilitate communication between scientists in Europe and other parts of the world and to strengthen their scientific ties. I would like to pay particular attention to young scientists who need informational support. The National Research University Higher School of Economics and its Center for Sociocultural Research offer interesting positions for postdocs and I would like to attract colleagues from various countries, notably from Europe, to these positions. I will endeavor to help my colleagues find partners for joint studies and joint research projects. In short, my mission is to raise both the quantity and quality of IACCP's intellectual and social capital.