Award Recipients for the ACBS World Conference 2025: Andrés Beltrán, Western Michigan University and Amanda McGovern, Rivier University.
The goal of the ACBS Foundation is to support existing activities within ACBS and explore areas for future development. One step in moving towards this goal has been to create the ACBS Foundation Student Scholarship, which provides two outstanding students complimentary registration to attend the ACBS World Conference.
Andrés Beltrán, Michigan, USA
I am originally from Chile, and attending and presenting at the ACBS Conference was a profoundly inspiring and transformative experience. The ACBS Foundation Student Scholarship represented far more than financial assistance. For students from middle-income economies, like myself, this support plays an important role in reducing economic barriers that often limit access to international academic spaces. By doing so, the scholarship actively promotes equity, inclusion, and global representation within the contextual behavioral science community.
This opportunity allowed me not only to attend the conference, but to truly engage with it, to exchange ideas, build meaningful professional relationships, and connect with colleagues and leading scholars from around the world who share a deep commitment to contextual behavioral science. I carry with me many incredible memories from the New Orleans conference, moments of learning, connection, and inspiration that I will deeply cherish. I look forward to building many more meaningful experiences alongside the contextual behavioral science community in the years to come.
After participating in the conference, my conviction has become even stronger that contextual behavioral sciences offer an effective pathway for improving psychological treatments and, ultimately, for alleviating human suffering. I am deeply grateful to the ACBS Foundation for this scholarship, which made my participation possible and affirmed the importance of supporting diverse voices in our shared scientific mission.
Amanda McGovern, Massachusetts, USA
I am deeply grateful to the ACBS Foundation for awarding me the Student Scholarship to attend the 2025 ACBS World Conference. Returning to doctoral training later in my career was a deliberate decision rooted in my commitment to expanding access to identity and neuroaffirming care, particularly for individuals and communities with limited financial means. I also hold a clear awareness of the privilege inherent in being able to pursue doctoral education at all, even while navigating significant financial constraints myself, and I see it as my ethical and human obligation to amplify the reach of any privilege I have beyond myself.
Scholarships such as this do far more than provide financial support; they help ensure that professional spaces remain enriched by a diversity of lived experiences, perspectives, and voices. Without this kind of intentional support, conferences of this caliber risk becoming accessible only to a narrow segment of the field. ACBS has consistently been a professional home where I have not only been able to attend but to build meaningful connections, engage with emerging research, and come away with new ways of thinking that directly inform my clinical work. I am profoundly appreciative of this opportunity and remain committed to paying it forward as I continue my work and mentorship within the field.