Dr. Janel Gauthier is Past President of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Laval University in Canada, and a past president of the Canadian Psychological Association. He received his doctorate in psychology from Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in 1975. He has over 200 research and professional publications on the applications of behavioural, cognitive, and social psychology in the treatment of anxiety and mood disorders, the enhancement of low social self-esteem as well as the management of grief reactions and chronic headaches. Since 2002, ethics and human rights is the main focus of his research, publications, and lectures. He also is a member or the chair of ethics committees for national and international organizations in psychology and outside of psychology.

One of his most important achievements is arguably the development of the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists under the auspices of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS) and the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and IAAP. He created and chaired the international working group that drafted the document. The Universal Declaration was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly of IUPsyS and the Board of Directors of IAAP in Berlin in 2008. It was the result of a six-year process of research and broad international consultation.

He has served extensively on national, regional and international organizations of psychology, including the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, the International Union of Psychological Science, the Interamerican Society of Psychology, and the International Association of Applied Psychology.

He has received numerous national and international awards for his distinguished contributions to education and training in psychology, and to the international advancement of psychology and ethics. Among those are the Interamerican Society of Psychology‘s Interamerican Psychology Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Development of Psychology as a Science and as a Profession in the Americas, the APA Division 52’s Outstanding International Psychologist Award, and the International Council of Psychologists’ Fukuhara Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Community of Professional Associations and the Discipline of Psychology.