39: Frank C. Worrell, PhD – President of the American Psychological Association (APA) Reflects on his Academic, Professional, and APA Journey

Masters in Psychology Podcast

Dr. Frank C. Worrell was born in Port of Spain, Capital of Trinidad and Tobago, and he remembers growing up in an area where the only running water in the house was from the tap in the kitchen. In this podcast interview, Dr. Worrell begins talking about his academic and professional journey by recalling where he and his parents grew up and how hard his parents worked to support the family. His parents were born in little fishing villages in Trinidad and Tobago, and he shares that his “mum eventually became an elementary school teacher.” Dr. Worrell liked education and his favorite subject growing up was English, so he was going to study English at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad campus. However, he shares an experience that changed his life and started him down the path of psychology. In fact, it was his interest in psychology that made him leave Trinidad “because psychology was not offered as a subject, even undergraduate, at the University of the West Indies.” He further explains “I’m the first in my family, the third of four kids, and the first to go to college, and so they agreed to let me go to Canada.” Dr. Worrell shares how he ended up attending the University of Western Ontario for his BA in Psychology and his MA in Educational Psychology. He explains why he changed his major from English to psychology and reveals how his father helped him while he was in school. In particular, his father came out of retirement and started working two jobs to pay for his tuition and he encouraged him to apply for a Commonwealth Scholarship which helped pay for his junior and senior year in college. After completing his master’s degree in educational psychology at Western, Dr. Worrell went back to Trinidad and was an English teacher and school counselor for a year. Then he was a Principal of a private, low-tuition school where the kids had been kicked out or flunked out of the regular school system and explains this is where he “got very interested in the factors that pushed kids out of school.” After spending a couple years in Trinidad, Dr. Worrell thought that he would go back to Canada and probably go back to Western to do his PhD, however, one of his best friends was at UC Berkeley and asked him if he was considering applying to Berkeley. His friend sent him a catalog and he ended up applying to many different schools that offered a graduate school psychology program. Out of all the schools in California that offer a graduate program in psychology, Dr. Worrell explains why he selected UC Berkeley. Dr. Worrell completed his postdoctoral work in clinical training at the Center for Educational Diagnosis and Remediation (CEDAR) Clinic within the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University. We then discuss his first professorship as an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at Penn State where he remained from 1994 to 2003 as an Assistant and Associate Professor before going back to UC Berkeley as an Associate Professor in Cognition and Development. Dr. Worrell eventually becomes the Director of the School Psychology Program, Faculty Director of the Academic Talent Development Program and the California College Preparatory Academy. He is also an Affiliate Professor of the Social and Personality Program in the Department of Psychology and a Distinguished Professor of Education in the School Psychology Program at UC Berkeley. Dr. Worrell is the author of more than 300 articles and book chapters, and he has received numerous awards for his teaching, service, and research. Recently, he received the Distinguished Lecturer award from the National Association of School Psychologists. Dr. Worrell and his co-editors Paula Olszewski-Kubilius and Rena F. Subotnik received the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Scholar Book of the Year Award two years in a row for two different books. They received the NAGC Scholar Book of the Year Award in 2019 for their book “Talent Development as a framew...