ACBS Foundation Board
According to our Foundation By-laws the Association of Contextual and Behavioral Sciences (ACBS) board is entitled to fill a majority of board positions and the Board of Directors of the Corporation shall fill the other positions. The Directors shall hold office until their successors have been duly appointed and qualified. Each director shall hold office until the expiration of the term for which he was appointed, and until his successor has been duly elected and qualified, or until his prior resignation or removal as hereinafter provided (see the bylaws here for more detail).
The ACBS Foundation board works without pay and consists of:
Clarissa Ong, Ph.D. (Treasurer)
Clarissa Ong (she/her) is an Assistant Professor and the Psychology Clinic Director at the University of Toledo. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical/Counseling Psychology at Utah State University. Her research focuses on developing, evaluating, and disseminating effective and culturally responsive interventions guided by behavioral and process-based principles. She has co-written two books: a transdiagnostic ACT manual, ACT in Steps, and a self-help book for perfectionism, The Anxious Perfectionist. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science.
Sarah Cassidy, Ph.D. (Member at Large)
Dr Sarah Cassidy is an Educational, Child & Adolescent Psychologist, a Peer Reviewed ACT Trainer, the Founder and Director of Smithsfield Clinic, and Co-Founder and Co-Director of New England Centre for OCD & Anxiety, Ireland Branch. Sarah also co-founded and is Chief Education Officer at RaiseYourIQ.com, a Maynooth University based campus company conducting cutting edge educational technological research using SMART training. Her many other roles include lecturing, training and researching in Child, Educational and Counselling Psychology from the CBS perspective in universities, health service executive, public and private organizations and clinics. She has authored numerous peer reviewed scientific articles in RFT and more recently, two best-selling ACT children’s books in the Tired of Anxiety series with co-author, Dr. Lisa Coyne.
Sarah Cheney, MSW is a clinical social worker and ACT therapist in private practice in Michigan. She specializes in anxiety and OCD. She has a master’s in clinical social work from Columbia University and a master’s in communication and rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Within ACBS, Sarah has volunteered for many years on the Social Work SIG board as chair and board member and also volunteered for the CAF SIG and an ACBS strategic planning committee. Sarah brings to ACBS over thirty years of experience in nonprofits, community building, and social advocacy including sixteen years as founder and co-director of a community garden.
John Hoch, Ph.D. (Member at Large)
Dr. Hoch is a Licensed Psychologist (LP). John graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Doctorate in Educational Psychology in 2007. He then completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Center for Neurobehavioral Development at the University of Minnesota. He worked as research director at Behavioral Dimensions from 2006 until 2015, when he returned to the University of Minnesota to work towards psychology licensure. He completed his internship and post-doctoral training at Fraser Child and Family Center where he continued to provide clinical care and conduct data analyses and research and until 2023. At Fraser, he provided functional behavior assessments, individual, family, and group therapy, and psychological assessment services. Dr. Hoch re-joined Behavioral Dimensions in January of 2023 to develop the Assessment and Research programs. He completes evaluations and assessments for children and adolescents with concerns about Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders. He specializes in understanding the overlaps between ASD and other clinical disorders such as potentially traumatic event exposures, anxiety, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD or developmental delays. He brings his experience with evidence-based therapy, behavior analysis, and research knowledge to psychological assessments. Going beyond diagnostic labels, he hopes to capture each family’s strengths, values, and stories in the assessment process to recommend the most effective treatments. Dr. Hoch also continues to provide data analytics and research consulting services through Behavioral Dimensions.
Dr. Lynn Farrell completed her PhD as an Irish Research Council postgraduate scholar at University College Dublin where she explored the nature and malleability of implicit bias towards women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) through the lens of Relational Frame Theory (RFT) as part of the UCD Contextual Behavioural Science lab. Lynn received the ACBS Student Spotlight award for her work on gender bias and previously served as a student representative on the Women in ACBS SIG during its establishment. After completing her doctoral research, she took up a Research Fellow position at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) where she continued to empirically explore how to improve gender equality efforts in STEM as part of the EPSRC funded Inclusion Matters project and was awarded the QUB Engineering and Physical Sciences Faculty Postdoctoral Outstanding Engagement award. Lynn is currently an Assistant Professor in Psychology and Programme Director of the part-time Psychology programme at National College of Ireland. She is also Director of EDI for the UK & Republic of Ireland ACBS Chapter. Her research interests and publications to date have focused mainly on understanding and influencing stereo types and bias particularly related to gender, improving gender equality initiatives and applying RFT to address social issues.