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Conference Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Dr. Louise Sundararajan
Keynote Topic:
From Indigenous to Global Psychology: Implications for Research and Practice
Louise Sundararajan received her BA in English Literature from Tunghai University, Taiwan, her Ph.D. in History of Religions from Harvard University, and her Ed.D. in Counseling Psychology from Boston University.
She is founder and chair of the Task Force on Indigenous Psychology, which is joined by over two hundred researchers from around the globe. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She served as past president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32 of the American Psychological Association).
She is recipient of the Abraham Maslow Award for 2014, from Division 32 of APA. She is associate editor of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, and editor-in-chief of Palgrave Studies in Indigenous Psychology.
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She has also published extensively on topics related to culture and emotions, and is the author of one book:
Sundararajan, L. (2015). Understanding emotion in Chinese culture: Thinking through psychology. New York, NY: Springer SBM. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319182209
Co-author of another:
Ting, R. S-K., & Sundararajan, L. (2018). Culture, cognition, and emotion in China's religious ethnic minorities: Voices of suffering among the Yi. Palgrave Studies in Indigenous Psychology Series. New York, NY: Springer Nature. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319660585
Co-editor of an edited volume:
Sundararajan, L., Hwang, K.-K., & Yeh, K.-H. (Eds.). (2020). Global psychology from indigenous perspectives: Visions inspired by K. S.Yang. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-35125-0
Dr. Rogelia Pe-Pua
Keynote Topic:
Was it worth it? Reflection on the Past, Present and Future of Philippine Indigenous Psychology
Rogelia Pe-Pua has a long history of specialisation in indigenous psychology (IP). She is “regarded as one of the prime movers of sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino Psychology) and contributor to indigenous psychology in the Philippines.”
She was mentored by, and worked closely with the Father of Filipino Psychology, Virgilio Enriquez, in this endeavor. She was his research assistant (while still an undergraduate student) “during the founding of the Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino (PSSP; National Association for Filipino Psychology) in 1975. Two years later, she joined the University of the Philippines (UP) Department of Psychology as a faculty member.
In conjunction with her work as PSSP founding member and UP faculty member, Pe-Pua was active in organizing conferences and editing publications to promote sikolohiyang Pilipino (SP).” She edited the first volume on Philippine IP in 1982 that went through five reprints. She has recently edited a broader and more comprehensive Handbook of Filipino Psychology in two volumes covering theory, methods and application of SP (2018 & 2019). “As a researcher, Pe-Pua has authored publications in indigenous psychology, migration psychology, and cross-cultural and cross-indigenous psychology.
She is known for her contributions to the development of indigenous research methodologies, and has conducted research on indigenous psychologies in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan using a cross-indigenization framework. Cross-indigenization derives from recognizing the value of indigenous psychologies with the end view of comparing various indigenous psychologies.”
She did further research on IP in New Zealand, Indonesia and Canada. Rogelia taught at UP for 15 years before she migrated to Australia with her family in 1992. There, she was Research Fellow at the Centre for Multicultural Studies at the university of Wollongong for 3 years. She then taught at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) for 18 years, including 7.5 years as head of school. She is currently Honorary Associate Professor at UNSW. Rogelia Pe-Pua is also an Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW. She was the Head of School from 2007-July 15, 2012. Prior to this, she was Head of the School of Social Science and Policy (2005-2006).
Plenary Speakers
Dr. Josephine Tan Choong Hean
Plenary Topic:
A Journey From Western to Decolonizing and Indigenous Psychology
Dr. Josephine Tan is the President of the International Council of Psychologists (ICP) which is a global community of psychologists with interests in human rights. She was born in and grew up in Malaysia. She left for Canada to pursue her undergraduate and graduate university education in Alberta and New Brunswick, respectively.
She became a Canadian citizen after the completion of her doctorate studies. She is a full-time tenured clinical psychology faculty at Lakehead University in Ontario, is involved primarily in graduate teaching and training, and has a particular interest in mentoring students and early career psychologists, particularly those from diverse backgrounds.
She is also a registered clinician who works mostly with individuals who are survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential School system and with their families on matters related to intergenerational trauma and cultural discontinuity.
Her current research interests include gender issues, cultural clinical psychology and decolonizing psychology. Her projects examine depression, non-suicidal self-harm, suicide among Indigenous peoples, and decolonizing teaching and training in psychology. She is also active in the area of diversity issues in leadership due to her experiences with leadership roles as a minority woman. Her work is published in peer-reviewed journals and books. She has delivered invited presentations at various universities, national and international conferences and UN NGO meetings.
Dr. James Hou-fu Liu
Plenary Topic:
How to Construct an Indigenous Psychology that Endures: From Publishing Papers to Intergenerational Development and Networking
James Hou-fu Liu is Professor of Psychology at Massey University in New Zealand. He was Head of its School of Psychology from 2015-2017. Prior to this, he taught at Victoria University of Wellington for twenty years, becoming Professor and Co-Director of its Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research. Author and co-author of more than 240 publications, his work is in social, cross-cultural, and political psychology, with a specialization in social representations of history (or collective remembering) and identity politics.
He just finished writing a book on Collective Remembering and the Making of Political Culture for Cambridge University Press (coming out soon). He is currently co-editor-in-chief of the International Society of Political Psychology’s flagship journal Political Psychology. As a keen member of the Asian Association of Social Psychology (http://asiansocialpsych.org) and a Past-President, he combines an interest in Chinese philosophy (especially Confucian Psychology) with critical realism. All his work is based on the premise that human societies are open systems, with ideas and institutions coming into and going out of being: these influence empirical observations of phenomena. He uses Kant’s idea of practical postulates to make his research more meaningful and purpose built for action. Recently he has been developing new work on trust, digital influence, and cross-cultural scholarship on cosmopolitanism and global consciousness. He identifies as a “Chinese-American-New Zealander”.
He was born in Taiwan (his parents were refugees from the mainland), grew up in the United States, and has worked his entire academic career in Aotearoa-New Zealand, where he subscribes to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. He completed a BSc in computer science at University of Illinois in 1984, and worked at Hughes Aircraft Company in Los Angeles before finishing a PhD in social and cognitive psychology at UCLA in 1992, supervised by Marilynn Brewer and Jim Sidanius.
Dr. Judith Gibbons
Plenary Topic:
Liberation Psychology: An Example of Indigenous Psychology Movement in
Latino America
Judith Gibbons, Professor Emerita of Psychology at Saint Louis University, is the founding editor of the American Psychological Association Division 52 journal International Perspectives in Psychology, an associate editor of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, a former president of the Interamerican Society of Psychology (SIP) and the Society for Cross-Cultural Research, co-founder of the Women’s Studies Program at Saint Louis University, and a former Fulbright scholar at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.
Her research focuses on adolescent development in the majority world, especially in Guatemala, and gender roles. She lives in Antigua, Guatemala with her husband, two dogs, and two horses.
Dr. Bu-xin Han
Plenary Topic:
Cultivated Holistic Health through Daily Practice - Art Works of Chinese Calligraphy and Seal
Buxin Han is professor of psychology at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IPCAS), Beijing, China. His research focused on the psychology of ageing, cultural psychology of religion, and color perception, and was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST), Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Natural Social Science Foundation of China (NSSFC), General Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection of China (GAQSI), and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), while reviewing grant applications for these agencies.
He has published over 200 scientific articles in journals such as The Psychologist, Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, European Journal of Personality, Pastoral Psychology, Aging & Mental Health, PloS ONE, and many Chinese journals. He is on the editorial boards of Acta Psychological Sinica, Psychological Science, Advances in Psychological Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Chinese Journal of Gerontology, and Clinical Psychology in China.
Dr. Kuang-Hui Yeh
Plenary Topic:
Constructing Indigenous Psychological Theories from a Global Perspective
Kuang-Hui Yeh PhD. (in Social and Personality Psychology) is now a research fellow at Institute of Ethnology in Academia Sinica and a joint-appointment professor of Psychology Department with National Taiwan University; Associate Editors of Frontiers in Psychology and Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology. He has been exploring indigenous conceptualizations, theories, and paradigms for understanding Chinese family interactions and their impact on individual development and adaptation since 1985.
In his recent publications, he proposed the Dual Filial Piety model and the Dual Autonomy Model in Chinese people. He had been the chief editor of Formosa Journal of Mental Health and Chinese Journal of Psychology; the associate editor of Asian Journal of Social Psychology. He received SU Shiang-Yeu Doctorate Dissertation Award, Chinese Psychological Association, 1992; Misumi Award, AASP, Best Article 2003 and Best Contribution Award 2004; Significant Research Achievement of Academia Sinica, 2006, 2008; Distinguished Research Award of Taiwan National Science Council, 2007.
He authored books "The Filial Piety of Chinese people: A psychological perspective (2008)" and "Cultivation of Chinese Characters from a perspective of Parent-children Network (2017)"; Editor-in-chief of books “Affect, Emotion, and Culture: Anthropological and Psychological Studies in Taiwanese Society”(2002), “Chinese Indigenous Psychology in Global Context: Reflections and Future Direction”(2013), “Asian Indigenous Psychologies in the Global Context” (2019), and “Global Psychology from Indigenous Perspectives: Visions Inspired by K. S. Yang”(2020).
Dr. Richard Katz
Plenary Topic:
Indigenous Healing Psychology: Honoring the Wisdom of Indigenous People
After receiving his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Harvard, Richard Katz began a journey beyond the confines of psychology, into a world of experiences nourished by Indigenous knowledge and its emphasis on spirituality.
He traveled in 1968 to the Kalahari Desert to work with the Ju/’hoansi, Indigenous peoples who, as primarily hunter-gathers, offer a view into the fundamental evolutionary roots of our human behavior. He experienced how their spiritually-infused healing energy expanded and became renewable, so, in a synergistic manner, the healing of one became the healing of all.
Over the past 55 years, Katz has lived and worked with other Indigenous healers, experiencing that same spiritually nourished healing energy pervading daily life. They asked him to bring their teachings to Western health care so as to make it more appreciative of diversity, more committed to social justice, and more respectful of the importance of community and spirituality in health and healing.
Katz stresses that while Indigenous knowledge is always offered freely – it cannot be sold on a fee-for-service basis – there is a cost. That knowledge has been nurtured by Indigenous peoples through centuries of colonization and oppression. To share in that knowledge we must commit ourselves to a path of service, not ego-enhancement or power; and give back to those who have been its guardians.
Katz’s latest book, Indigenous Healing Psychology: Honoring the Wisdom of the First Peoples is a culmination of his work. Author royalties from that book will be given back to the Indigenous elders and healers whose teachings animate the book.
Katz is presently a Professor Emeritus at the First Nations University of Canada, he can be reached at: rkatz@firstnationsuniversity.ca
Dr. Alvin Dueck
Plenary Topic:
The Role of Religion in the Indigenous Psychology Context: Its Implication for Post-Colonial Era
Alvin Dueck is the Distinguished Senior Professor of Cultural Psychologies at Fuller. In addition to teaching courses that focus on the dialogue between culture, psychology, and theology, he has been engaged in research on the role of religion in therapy, congregational health, and conflict resolution between Christians and Muslims. He was the principal investigator in a research project on the spiritual experience of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. He also participates in the Center for Research on Religion and Psychotherapy. He is currently the recipient (with Dr. Han Buxin) of another grant to support psychology of religion research in China and to encourage intellectual exchange with American psychologists of religion.
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Dueck is a licensed psychologist with a long history of teaching in the seminary setting. Prior to joining Fuller’s faculty in 1998, Dueck was director of the Marriage and Family Counseling program at the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary. He presented the Integration Lectures at Fuller in 1986, which have since been published in the book Between Jerusalem and Athens: Ethical Perspectives on Culture, Religion and Psychotherapy. Together with Cameron Lee, he has edited a volume of essays entitled Why Psychology Needs Theology: A Radical-Reformation Perspective. He also edited and contributed an article entitled “Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Integration” to a special issue of the Journal of Psychology and Theology. For the 40th Anniversary of the School of Psychology, he edited a volume of integration essays by faculty: Integrating Psychology and Theology: Reflections and Research. He is coauthor with Ann Ulanov of The Living God and the Living Psyche. With Dr. Gladys Mwiti, a Fuller Theological Seminary graduate in Kenya, Dueck authored a book entitled Christian Counseling: An African Indigenous Perspective. Released recently is a book written with Dr. Kevin Reimer: A Peaceable Psychology: Christian Therapy in a World of Many Cultures. He is coeditor with Dr. Han Buxin of a recent issue of Pastoral Psychology entitled “Psychology of Religion in the People’s Republic of China.”
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Dueck serves as manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Psychology and Theology. His professional affiliations have included the American Psychological Association, the California Psychological Association, the Christian Association of Psychological Studies, the American Academy of Religion, and the Association of Mennonite Psychologists.
He was a board member and chair of the Board of Directors of the Kings View Mental Health Corporation. Dueck has also served as a consultant to international mission agencies since 1984 and is actively involved in encouraging indigenous mental health awareness and services in Guatemala, Africa, and China. He was a participant in a mental health tour to the Soviet Union in 1989.