ASPP Advisory Board

Catherine Arlidge is Sub Principal Second Violin in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Artistic and Educational Director of the National Children’s Orchestras of Great Britain. NCO GB is essentially a mini Team GB for classical music, supporting over 700 exceptional young musicians from across the country, in 11 orchestras.

As a professional violinist who has dedicated the past 25 years to performing, touring and recording with the CBSO, along side a busy programme of educational activities off the concert platform. She presents schools and family concerts across the UK and is a founder member of The Stringcredibles - a string quartet dedicated to exploring the relationship between classical performers and their audiences. She is a passionate advocate for the value of creativity in education and recently served a 6 year tenure on the board of the Association of British Orchestras. 

Catherine was awarded an MBE for services to Music Education in the 2016 New Years Honours and in 2015 she was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society and Association of British Orchestras’ Salomon Prize, an award for the ‘unsung’ heroes of our orchestras.”

Graham Betchart is a mental skills coach that motivates through music. He has combined mental skills training and music to create a unique style. His passion is helping people learn the power of the mind and normalizing mental training for all.

Graham has worked with many athletes and performers, with much of the focus on basketball. His consulting has included the Utah Jazz and three #1 draft picks in the NBA. He started working with Aaron Gordon when Aaron was 13 years old. Graham has a master’s degree in sport psychology from John F. Kennedy University. 

Dr. Angel Brutus is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Synergistic Solutions, a clinical, sport and performance consulting firm designed to curate professional development experiences for high performance professionals across multiple performance domains. She also serves as a member of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s Sports Medicine leadership team of providers in psychological services supporting Team USA athletes. 

Dr. Brutus has developed a reputation for serving as a subject matter expert regarding the intersection of culturally-responsive, ethical and legal practices necessary for successfully engaging in the field of counseling and sport performance psychology. Her penchant for ethically inclusive practices has served as the bedrock for her involvement and development of organizational best practices, guidelines, policies, and procedures in various organizational systems.​  She is known for her interpersonal leadership style that curates meaningful identity-affirming experiences necessary for navigating various high stress, high performance environments. Many of Dr. Brutus' mentees and supervisees have successfully assisted organizations with developing and maintaining sustainable counseling and sport performance psychology programs within athletic departments across the United States. Her work has since transcended the world of sports, into other performance domains to include, but not limited to corporations, performing arts and entertainment.

Dr. Brutus earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology and her Master of Science in Counseling (Rehabilitation Counseling) from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. After successfully managing a private practice, Dr. Brutus subsequently returned to learning and earned her Doctorate of Psychology (PsyD) in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of the Rockies (now known as the University of Arizona Global Campus). Her experience as a hybrid (in-person and online) doctoral student fortified her approach to supporting and mentoring emerging professionals in the field of counseling and sport-performance psychology who may desire a sense of community, engagement, and identity-affirming approaches to this highly competitive profession.

Dr. Brutus has engaged in integral leadership and service roles throughout the trajectory of her career to include serving as:  Inaugural member of the appointed Southeastern Conference (SEC) Council on Racial Equity and Social Justice where she co-authored the SEC Mental Health Professionals and Practitioners Guidance adopted by all 17 SEC university presidents in the year of 2021; Current secretary/treasurer for the American Psychological Association’s Division 47 (Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology); Professional Standards Division Head for the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) in which she serves as ex-officio for the Certification Council and supports the efforts of the association’s ethics, continuing education, and webinars/virtual conference committees; board member for the California Association of Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors (CALPCC); Inaugural advisory council member establishing the ethics code for the Board Certified Telemental Health credential.  She is a member of the 2023-2024 cohort for the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) mental health diploma program and has served as mental health officer supporting the Team USA delegation for the 2023 Pan American Games hosted in Santiago, Chile.
 

Adonal Foyle is a retired NBA player, who was the eighth overall NBA draft pick in 1997. He played a total of 13 NBA seasons, the first ten with the Golden State Warriors and last three with the Orlando Magic. Upon his retirement from playing professional basketball, Adonal served for 2 NBA seasons with the Orlando Magic as their Director of Player Programs, and currently serves as the part-time Community Ambassador for the 2015 World Champion Golden State Warriors.

Adonal grew up in the tiny nation of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, where he first picked up a basketball at the age of 15. His quest for a college education which ultimately led him to the USA and into the NBA is an amazing and inspirational story of ambition, hard work and a little bit of luck. Growing up in impoverished circumstances in the Caribbean dramatically influenced Adonal’s worldview, and off the court, he is an activist with a deep commitment to the community, especially young people.

Adonal makes numerous community service appearances and founded two non-profit organizations: Democracy Matters (www.democracymatters.org), a non-partisan campus-based project working to get big money out of politics and people in; and Kerosene Lamp Foundation (www.KLFkids.org) which uses basketball to engage and empower at-risk youth to grow into healthy and well-educated leaders in the Caribbean and USA.

Dr. Kensa Gunter is a licensed psychologist and Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC). Through her Atlanta based, private practice she provides counseling and consultation services to individuals, teams, and organizations. Dr. Gunter also serves as the Director of NBA Mind Health, the league's mental health and wellness program. She is committed to humanizing conversations about mental health and highlighting the role of social, cultural, and environmental factors on health, performance, and wellbeing. Dr. Gunter currently serves as an Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (EDI) Co-Coordinator for Division 47 of the American Psychological Association. She also serves on the International Board of Directors for Little League International and is a member of the National Advisory Board for the Positive Coaching Alliance. Additionally, she is listed on the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) Mental Performance Registry, and she served as a member of the USOPC External Mental Health Taskforce (2019-23). Dr. Gunter previously served as President of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (2020-21) and was the first African American to hold this position. She also received the distinction of AASP Fellow as a member of the 2020 induction class.

Dr. Ronald Kimmons, has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology (PsyD), a Master’s degree in Social Welfare (MSW), and a Master’s degree in Sport Psychology (MA).

As an African-American male practitioner, I bring a multicultural diversity perspective that enables me to help clients develop, improve, and increase self-esteem, self-worth, self-concept, and self-determination. My style and skill set incorporate mental skills training techniques, fused with an integrative psychological theoretical orientation, with a foundation in social work practice. My integrative philosophy builds from an interpersonal base focused on the maturation of those various self-conceptualizations; as understanding the importance of healthy self-esteem allows us to build, repair, or invigorate self-confidence. I subscribe to the notion that: Thoughts affect Feelings, affect Behaviors, affects Performance [T->F->B->P]. It is my belief that it is imperative to inculcate people with a view of themselves as able minded, in order to be able bodied. The goal of my approach is to facilitate a process in which clients are working to increase their sense of self-worth while developing the ability to utilize critical thinking competencies to: solve problems, set goals, increase motivation, in order to experience positive change in their life, sport, and/or overall current circumstance. The interplay of peak performance training, mental strength/mental toughness development is fundamental in its relatedness to wellness; and is a key component in achieving or experiencing peak performance in the classroom, sport/competition, personal and professional relationships; together, these components are the elements of my teachings of the “foundations of self” and my interpersonal developmental theory, known as Foundamentalism ©.

I currently function as the team consultant for the Utah Jazz (in the role of “Director of Wellness & Human Performance/Mental Skills Coach”); my client base also includes: professional/collegiate/high school athletes, Olympians, high level academics, Hollywood actors, that person at the gym training for the marathon, that dude in your Pilates class etc…… along with a raft of elementary, and middle school soccer and basketball players (Oakland Orange Scorpions!)

Professor Zoe Knowles (Professor of Engagement and Learning) is an academic member of staff at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. 

Zoe is the Strategic Lead for External Engagement in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences and a National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) Public Engagement Professional. Zoe is a Health and Care Professions Council Registered Practitioner Psychologist and Fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (FBASES). 

Currently a Board member for the association Zoe is also Chair Elect (2020). Zoe has several research interests including the psycho-social determinants of physical activity, the benefits of natural and active play, creative and qualitative methodologies with children and the design/evaluation of sport psychology interventions within youth sports

Dr. MacIntyre is an environmental psychologist investigating fundamental theoretical questions about motor cognition, well-being, and human-nature interactions. Since, 1993, he has been conducting research on mental imagery, embodied cognition, and action-related processes, in the field of motor cognition. He studied psychology at University College Dublin where he graduated with a BA, a first-class honors research Masters (1996), and subsequently a PhD in 2007. His research was supervised by the late Professor of Cognitive Psychology at UCD, Aidan Moran. He has published widely on topics including mental imagery and embodied cognition in sport, mental health, resilience, and well-being in elite sport, and most recently on COVID-19 related challenges among stakeholders in sport. He has been a consultant sport psychology practitioner for over 20 years and currently chairs the Sport Ireland Institute Practitioner Accreditation Panel and also the Psychological Society of Ireland Division of Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology. He has supervised almost a dozen doctoral students to completion to date. In 2021 he will be a keynote speaker at the NATA annual convention and in 2022 he is an invited keynote at the European Congress of Sport Psychology. In 2019, he co-edited Physical Activity in Natural Settings (Routledge) with Aoife Donnelly. He is an Associate Editor of the leading journal in sport psychology, International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology. He has recently edited a special issue of Frontiers in Psychology on methodological challenges in assessing human-nature interactions, and two special issues relating to COVID-19 and sport. He is also co-editor of a special issue in IJERPH on the topic of advances in green exercise and health promotion. In recent years, his research activity has focused on nature-based solutions for urban health and sustainability. He is a member of the advisory board of H2020 NBS project RE-Nature, the INTERREG Project CCAT on coastal citizenship, and is a visiting lecturer at the Technical University of Munich and a member of the advisory board. He is the coordinator of GOGREEN ROUTES a 10.5 m. euro four-year project on urban health which targets six European cities and has 

Simon Marshall, PhD is an internationally renowned expert in the psychology of sport and exercise, with focus on resilience and coping in high stress environments. He is a former Director of the Graduate Program in Sport & Exercise Psychology at San Diego State University, and Professor of Behavioral Medicine and Public Health at the University of California San Diego. From 2016-2018, he was the Head of Psychological Support for the BMC Racing, a Tour de France professional cycling team. He has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters and is co-author of the best selling book, The Brave Athlete (VeloPress 2017). Dr. Marshall has served as an invited expert for the US National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society. He lives in San Diego, CA with his wife, Lesley Paterson, a five-time professional triathlon World Champion.

Angus is the Vice President for High Performance, leading a collaborative, high performance culture with the Toronto Blue Jays. He previously served as the Director of the IMG Institute, leading mental performance consulting for corporate, sport and tactical athletes. He worked with and helped develop the Mental Conditioning team at IMG Academy who are doing outstanding work in applying concepts from sport psychology to help junior and aspiring elite athletes achieve their potential. His educational background has benefited from experiences both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, from BASES (British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences) Accredited for Sport Psychology support, to BPS (British Psychological Society) Chartered Psychologist Status; to the US counterparts of AASP (Assoc. of Applied Sport Psych) Certified Consultant, APA (American Psychological Assoc.) and on the Sport Psychology Registry for the USOPC (United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee). He was also honored to be elected president of AASP in 2015. His goals continue to be, fostering the development of people, improving the quality and practicality of performance delivery and character development for athletes, coaches, parents, organizations and the public as a whole. He lives in St Petersburg, FL and has two energetic young sons, Will and Tom. 

Dr. Eddie O'Connor is a clinical sport and performance psychologist in private tele-health practice. As a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, AASP and Michigan licensed psychologist he specializes in overcoming obstacles to excellence with extensive experience in performance anxiety and pain/injury rehabilitation. Dr. O'Connor is owner of Success Stories Membership, an online community of high achievers building skills to achieve excellence in sport, business and health. He is author and host of "The Psychology of Performance: How to Be Your Best in Life" via The Great Courses. 

Dr. Duncan Simpson is the Director of Personal Development and oversees a team of eleven mental coaches and three leadership coaches who deliver mental and leadership training to 1200 student-athletes across eight sports. He also works with the IMG institute to deliver programming to corporate clients. Prior to joining IMG Academy Dr. Simpson served as an associate professor at Barry University where he taught in the undergraduate and masters programs in sport, exercise, and performance psychology. Dr. Simpson is a researcher and writer in the field of sport and performance psychology. He has published his research studies in numerous national and international peer-reviewed journals. He has also written and published book chapters on an array of sport psychology topics. He is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) and is a member of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) sport psychology registry. Since 2005 he has been conducting mental skills training with athletes and coaches from a range of sports and varying in talent and ability from beginners to professional/Olympic athletes, including NCAA D-I, II, & III student-athletes. Dr. Simpson was recently voted onto the Executive Board for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) as the Division Head for Research and Practice.

Dr. Lauren S. Tashman, CMPC is a Performance Coach based in New York City through her private practice Align Performance, LLC. She is also a Master Coach with Valor Performance and a co-host for the Path Distilled podcast. She works with clients in sport, the performing arts, medicine, and various sectors of business on mindset, leadership, and team/organizational culture. Dr. Tashman received her Bachelor's in Psychology from The College of New Jersey and her Master's and PhD degrees in Educational Psychology with a major in Sport Psychology from Florida State University. She also has certificates in research methods and program evaluation, and spent several years studying expert performance under the direction of Drs. K. Anders Ericsson, Paul Ward, and David Eccles. She's co-edited several books and published peer-reviewed articles, served as a chair and committee member on theses and dissertation research projects, and has done many webinars, workshops, panels, and presentations to various national and international audiences of a vast array of topics. After spending almost eight years as a professor and coordinator of sport psychology services at Barry University, she shifted her focus to working with clients while still striving to continue giving back to the field by serving as an adjunct professor and mentor for graduate programs and as a member on several committees for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.

Dr. Tanya Prewitt-White, CMPC and Survivor Advocate, is the owner of Dr. Tanya Raquel, the current Advocacy Chair for the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) and a practitioner providing performance enhancement consulting to athletes and coaches; though, it has been through this work she has realized her obligation to address and discuss the difficult realities deeply rooted in sport and society. Thus, Tanya has committed her life to entering the transformative dialogues necessary for equity and progress in both sport and society. Dr. Prewitt-White is dedicated to using her voice and finding the courage to say hard things with grace so that every person is heard and able to reach their personal best. 

Ruthie Bolton is one of the most accomplished female athletes in the world. She is a 2-time Olympic Gold Medalist, a USA Basketball Female of the Year, the Sports Illustrated Best Woman Athlete by home state and one of only 4 players to be named to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2011. She remains in the Auburn University record books to this day even though she was told she, "couldn't do it," and was the first Lady Tiger to have her number retired.

After college, she was not even invited to try out for the U.S. National Team- a team which she later led to a Gold Medal in 1996. 2 years later, she was told she would never play basketball again due to a torn A.C.L., yet she re-claimed her spot on the National Team, and brought them to a second Gold Medal in 2000.

“Mighty Ruthie” Bolton was the original franchise player for the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs. Scored over 2000 career points, 4th on the WNBA’s all-time 3-pointer list and the only player in the history of the Monarchs to have her number retired. She’s been on the cover of Sports Illustrated, a guest on Regis, David Letterman, and was sponsored by Nike.

Ruthie’s off-the-court accomplishments include being a 1st Lieutenant in the Army, the first National Spokeswoman for the WNBA’s “Play Fit/ Stay Fit” youth development program, the release of her first Gospel CD single “Making a Way.” Author of her book, “The Ride of a Lifetime” and "From Pain to Power".

She's a highly sought-after speaker. Some of her favorite messages include: Attitude is Everything, Overcoming Adversity, How To Exceed Expectations, Finding the Beauty in the Struggle, Keep Aiming High, Family and the Value of Love, Accountability and Working as a Team.
 

Lisa brings a high level of expertise to the athlete mental health space, from both a clinical and performance focus. She works with elite youth athletes, collegiate student athletes, Olympians/Olympic hopefuls, professional athletes, coaches, teams, and the entire sport ecosystem. 

Lisa is the first-ever Mental Performance Coach for the Oakland Roots Sports Club, a men’s professional soccer team, in the USL, working alongside other coaches on the Technical Team, as well as the Sports Medicine staff. 

Lisa is listed in the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s Mental Health Registry, the NFL Player Association’s Clinician Directory, and the Major League Rugby Mental Health and Wellness Directory.

As a direct response to need, Lisa founded AthMindset® – a diverse team of athlete-centered, licensed mental health clinicians and mental performance consultants, serving across several states.  

Lisa is a professional podcast host and podcast guest. She hosts the Athlete Mindset Podcast and co-hosts of Roots Radio. She is a keynote speaker, an accomplished TEDx Speaker, speaks nationally and internationally, and is often invited to speak at conferences and contribute to expert panels.

Lisa has been quoted in Time Magazine, Teen Vogue, Women’s Health Magazine, as well as being interviewed on the BBC World News and Radio Bliss, in Jordan.

Lisa received her Master’s in Clinical Social Work from Smith College School for Social Work and attended University of California at Santa Barbara as an undergraduate. 
 

Lesley Paterson is a former 5x World Champion professional triathlete, Bafta winning and Oscar nominated screenwriter/producer based in Los Angeles, California. Originally from Scotland, UK, Lesley has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Film, and has been acting, writing and producing for over 20 years alongside her sports career.
 
At the beginning of her film career, she teamed up with Ian Stokell to option and adapt the famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front. After 15 years of developing the project in tandem with her husband, Dr Simon Marshall, they found the perfect partners in Edward Berger and Malte Grunert to finally get it off the ground. The film is now out on Netflix and WON 7 Baftas and 4 Oscars. 
 
Having now semi-retired from professional sport, Lesley has partnered exclusively with Simon to focus on writing and producing full time. The next project in pre-production and due to be shot in October 2023 is “HIDDEN”. Written by Simon and Lesley, this psychological thriller is set in the highlands of Scotland and will star Karen Gillen with Carl Strathie to direct.  
 
Second up on the slate will be “Our Soul to Keep” – written by Simon and Lesley, this script is based on an amazing true story set in 1900 in what we now know as Ghana. It follows a Queen Mother (Yaa Asantewaa) as she raises an army of 5000 warriors to fight off the British and save their sacred Golden Stool - the soul of the Ashanti nation. 
 
As Lesley now takes the magic formula that won her many world titles in sport, she is setting her sights on some lofty ambitions to create and produce hard hitting and muscularly poetic stories for her second shot in a new career!
 

Michael Sachs is a Professor Emeritus at Temple University. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology is from Union College (NY) and two master’s degrees – general experimental psychology (Hollins College) and counseling psychology (Loyola University, MD). His PhD in sport psychology is from Florida State. Michael is co-author of Excusercise: Inexcusable Excuses for not Exercising (Bruce Cohen & Sachs, 2023). He is co-editor of Performance Excellence: Stories of Success From the Real World of Sport and Exercise Psychology and Applied Exercise Psychology: The Challenging Journey From Motivation to Adherence (second edition coming in May 2024) and associate editor of Psychology of Running and coeditor of Running as Therapy: An Integrated Approach. He co-wrote The Total Sports Experience for Kids: A Parents' Guide to Success in Youth Sports and has numerous book chapters, academic articles on exercise and sport psychology, and articles on the psychology of running. He is a Past-President of both AASP (the Association for Applied Sport Psychology) and Division 47, the Society for Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, of APA (the American Psychological Association). He is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant with AASP. 

Siana Sylvester is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, Certified Professional Coach, and Certified Change Management Expert. She serves as a High Performance Consultant at HigherEchelon, Inc. and has over 10 years of experience related to human behavior. Siana has made a consulting career in high performance, change management, process improvement, training, and organizational development. As a change management consultant and executive coach, Siana assists leaders, elite athletes, and military professionals in leveraging their talents, maximizing their effectiveness, and achieving their goals. Siana graduated summa cum laude from the University of Hartford earning a B.A. in Psychology and minor in Sociology and received her Master of Education in Athletic Counseling from Springfield College.

In Siana's role in learning and development, she serves as an experienced human capital professional, with a primary focus on manager development. She serves as a lead facilitator for a variety of leader-focused programs from needs assessment to delivery through measuring effectiveness. Siana manages, executes, and oversees select learning offerings, and partners with subject matter experts to skillfully facilitate workshops on a number of topics, including delegating effectively, giving feedback, and developing talent. This role is key to HigherEchelon's human capital strategy and enabling customer success.