 
What do a director of industry Wand market research at the American
Society of Association Executives in Washington, D.C., an adjunct instructor
at Trinity College and a clinical psychologist at Johns Hopkins University
have in common?
Instead of pursuing a psychology career in one setting, Steve Williams, PhD, decided to spread his expertise around. "It is extremely important for, me to get a mix of what I do," he says. By combining these positions, he is satisfying his love of clinical work, research and administration. His position at the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) appears to be nontraditional from the outside, but a closer look shows that he is using many skills he learned through his psychology training. Williams directs and plans all of the associations industry and marketing research operations. His department helps executives make concrete decisions at the individual level-such as compensation-and at the organizational level-including guidance about decisions within the organization-based on empirical data. The research establishes benchmarks for organizational management, such as financial operations, policies and procedures, or an organization's use of technology (i.e., e-commerce). He also interacts with top-level executives to discuss compensation, benefits and perks. Williams decided to pursue a career in administration after seeing the data on salary for psychologists working in traditional settings when he worked at APA’s Research Office as assistant director from 1997 to 1999. Employers with traditional psychology settings often view recent psychology doctorates at the beginning of their careers. But, says Williams, "If you're a new doctorate in a nontraditional setting, employers often count from the time you get your bachelor's to the time you receive your doctorate as experience and you get compensated accordingly for those years." Also, as the only psychologist-and the only person to have a PhD-in the organization, Williams finds that he's no longer just one of the crowd. Taking a nontraditional path has also allowed Williams to build his knowledge and skill base-in areas such as salary and contract negotiations that can be applied to many other job settings. In the future Williams says he would like to get more involved in consulting about management issues. Williams says he still wants clinical work to be a part of his career. "In years to come, I don't think many psychologists will have a choice about pursuing nontraditional careers, especially with the way managed care is making changes to the health-service provider fields," says Williams. "Psychologists should start to think outside the box, whether they do it by choice or they're forced to." Threat Assessment, Secret Service Marisa Reddy, PhD, wants to tell you a few things about school shootings: First and foremost, this isn't a new phenomenon; school shootings have been happening since the 1970s. Second, you can't believe everything you see on the news. And third, school shooters almost never "just snap"; they plan, sometimes for months ahead of time. Reddy is co-director of the Secret Service's Safe Schools Initiative, an operational study of school shootings in the United States. Along with forensic psychologist Robert Fine, PhD, and Secret Service Agent Bryan Vossekuil, Reddy is analyzing 37 shooting cases that span 25 years. Some of the incidents are familiar--Pearl, Miss.; West Paducah, Ky.; Littleton, Colo.-but many are not. For example, in 1985 a 14-year-old in Goddard, Kan., shot and killed his principal and injured three others. For each case, Reddy and her colleagues thoroughly research the incident to answer hundreds of questions about what happened. They review investigative, court, school and mental health records and talk with police, sheriffs, school officials, prosecutors and, in some cases, the shooters. The team's goal is to find what was known or knowable before an attack and how to apply that knowledge to prevent future attacks. Reddy spends about 65 percent of her time on the road researching cases
and explaining the Secret Service's findings at training sessions for principals,
teachers, mental health professionals and law enforcement officials.
She became interested in psychology and the law as an undergraduate at Williams College, and garnered experience from internships at the Federal Judicial Center, APA’s Public Policy Office and the Rand Corp. While president of Div. 41's (American Psychology, Law Society) student section, Reddy met Margaret Coggins, PhD, who headed up research at the Secret Service. Coggins helped her land an internship at the Secret Service that she says was "unpaid but well worth the investment." "I highly recommend seeking out internships, even if there's no formal program, because I have more connections and have had more opportunities as a result," Reddy advises. And she says her internships and education provided a solid foundation for conducting behavioral research. Her social psychology background in recognizing what influences behavior has particularly helped her better understand violence-risk assessment and violent behavior. Reddy's research is now coming to fruition, with the release of the initiative's interim report last fall. Some of the report's other findings include:
Research Associate, Federal Judicial Center When it comes to career planning, it's easier for some of us to know what we don't want. That was true for Meghan Dunn, PhD, who had no interest in following in her professors' footsteps. "I knew I wanted to look outside of academia and more into applied research," she explains. With the help of her adviser, Dunn found a 1999 summer internship at the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) in Washington, D.C., a post that showed her one of the off-the-beaten-track careers that existed outside of academia. Eventually, that internship turned into a permanent job as a research associate. Dunn performs social science research for the federal court system in the research division of FJC, where empirical and exploratory research on federal judicial processes and court management is conducted. The research division is comprised of 15 lawyers and 15 social scientists. Most have social psychology PhDs, and several have joint PhD/JD degrees. "I enjoy working in a place where I can share my interests with people who also study law and social psychology," she says. Dunn helps identify problems and issues relevant to the federal courts, develops research designs to study them and analyzes the data once the study is complete. She also writes the final reports of the data analyses. One of the division projects examines the impact of electronic and digital evidence in the courtrooms—a perfect fit for Dunn, since her graduate dissertation at Yale University studied the effects of computer-animated reconstructions, such as car accidents, plane crashes, etc., on juror decision-making. To gather data for the FJC project, Dunn speaks with judges and courtroom clerks and staff to get a sense of the technology used in court, whether attorneys like using it and the problems they have encountered. The research division also talks with judges about ways in which the technology can enhance or impede the different stages of a trial, from pretrial conferences to the attorneys’ closing arguments. Because FJC works at the federal court level, it focuses more on judges and less on attorneys. According to Dunn, the research division is more interested in the issues raise by courtroom technology, such as whether the side with more technology has more of an advantage during a trial. "Eventually, we'd like to do a series of empirical studies to examine how certain types of courtroom technology affect trial participants, judges, attorneys, witnesses and the jury," says Dunn. She says she thoroughly enjoys doing research that will benefit judges and the legal profession. "It's interesting to see the research in action and to know that it won't be buried in a journal," she says. "it will be distributed to judges and lawyers and can help improve the trial structure and the way things run in a courtroom. As a research associate, Dunn finds that the skills she learned as 4 student such as designing valid and reliable questionnaires, analyzing data and writing reports-are valuable to her job. "All the steps I followed in graduate school are being put to good use," she says.
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