If you are a psychology student at SUNY Old Westbury, you know Dr. Fred Millán. And chances are, Dr. Millán knows you, too.
Dr. Fred Millán was born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents. “I grew up in a neighborhood that was Puerto Rican and African American, and there was a Polish community as wel,” Dr. Millán said.
Since he was little, Dr. Millán was fascinated by the idea of “knowing what people wanted to do and why they felt the way they felt.” When he went to high school, he “noticed that there was a disparity between the kids that had more money and spoke English first” and the kids who didn’t have much money or whose first language wasn’t English.
It was clear that Dr. Millán always knew that he wanted to be a psychologist. He focused on social justice by targeting underprivileged groups from diverse ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds, including Latinx folks, people of color, and LGBTQ+-individuals.
Dr. Millán attended New York University (NYU) and received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology. He then pursued a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology and a Master of Arts in the School of Education at the same university. He wanted to become a counseling psychologist who specializes in working with adults and adolescents from a range of social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Additionally, he earned an APA-approved Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Columbia University.
Dr. Millán does a lot of services for professional organizations. He was the president of the National Latinx Psychology Association and the president of the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. Recently, he was elected president of the American Psychology Association (APA), Division 45.
The creation of the APA’s Telepsychology Guidelines is one of Dr. Millán’s greatest achievements.
“Telepsychology guidelines were already in place when COVID hit, helping people to understand how to do it in the right way, how to do it ethically, and how to do it legally,” Dr. Millán explained.
Dr. Millán involves himself in helping Latinx students and other underprivileged students, he explained that even though graduate students from less privileged places might get funds, they frequently experience loneliness and a lack of support. He firmly believes that schools must supply the infrastructure and support system needed to keep children from underrepresented groups in school, insisting that it’s necessary to affirm and support their existence.
Recently, Dr. Millán won the 2023 Alfred M. Wellner Lifetime Achievement Award for Practice, the highest distinction granted by the National Register. He is a Distinguished Service Professor in psychology and the director of the Graduate Mental Health Counseling Program at SUNY Old Westbury. He also maintains a part-time private practice in Spanish and English and provides clinical supervision to doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and psychiatric residents.
