Opening Remarks & Radical Healing Among People of African Descent: Cultivating Hope and Joy - Africana Studies Conference 2025

Helen A. Neville is the interim head of the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, a professor of Educational Psychology and African American Studies, and a Center for Advanced Studies Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

She is past president of the Society of Counseling Psychology (APA Division 17) and the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race (APA Division 45) and a fellow of the American Psychological Association. She is active in the Association of Black Psychologists, having served on their Board of Directors and receiving their Distinguished Psychologist award.

Her research on race, racism, and African American psychology has been published in a wide range of journal articles and she has co-edited 8 books in this area. She enjoys teaching, life-long learning and fighting for social justice.