Draft:Diane Janice Willis

Diane Janice Willis is an American psychologist who focuses on clinical adolescence and child psychology. She founded the Division 37 section of the Society for Pediatric Psychology and American Orthopsychiatric Association. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center.

Early life and education
Diane Janice Willis was born on May 9, 1937 in Northern Oklahoma. Her father, William Paschal, was a teacher and high school principal, but when he met Willis' mother, Zelma Bynum Willis, he began to work for a business to provide for the family. Her family moved around a lot because of this, but at age 12, her father finished his master's degree in History and the family settled in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. After graduating with a Bachelor's in Biology from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, she when on to get her Master's of Arts in Psychology from George Peabody College in 1965. She decided she wanted to return home and was offered to start her PhD in University of Oklahoma's clinical training program. However, she decided she preferred to do an experimental and developmental curriculum instead and began to work with Muzafer Sherif to pursue this. In 1970 she was awarded her PhD in Psychology. from the University of Oklahoma

Career and research
The academic path Diane Janice Willis took may have meandered, but it no way left her unprepared for a career in psychology. During her time as a graduate student Diane joined the newly minted “Society of Pediatric Psychology”, by 1972 she had been elected to the board. With the resignation of Allan Barclay in 1973 Diane became editor for the Society of Pediatric Psychology newsletter. Then, in 1977 they had more than 450 members and were promoted to the Journal of Pediatric Psychology. Within 2 years membership had reached 734 and in 1979, Plenum Press assumed publication of the journal.

After finishing her postdoctoral training from OUHSC, Diane took on the Chief Psychologist position at John W. Keys Speech and Hearing Center. During this time she published three papers (Carpenter & Willis, 1972 ; Elbert & Willis, 1984; Willis, Wright, & Wolfe, 1973 ). From 1974 until around late 1975 Diane worked as a psychology consultant. Due to the stress of being one of two consultants, she then accepted the position of Director of Psychological Services at the Child Study Center (CSC). This is where she first explored and began kickstarting outreach programs for Native Americans. She also founded the Child Protection Committee, working to help review, evaluate and treat abused and poor children. From her efforts, Oklahoma begane to reimburse families for psychological services. The second project at CSC involved helping parents of at-risk infants, along with the infants themselves. At this time she also published many papers with interns (Holden, Willis, & Foltz, 1989 ; Roberts, Koocher, Routh, & Willis, 1993 ; Silovsky & Willis, 2000; Willis & Bigfoot, 2003 ; Willis, Holden, & Rosenberg, 1992; Willis & Silovsky, 1998)

Willis’s research focused on understanding how learning disabilities and outside factors affected their learning. She pioneered methods for investigating such topics and helped expand child psychology into the field it is today. Her work in bringing mental health services was influential enough to receive the APA Citizen Psychologist Presidential Citation.

Awards and recognition
Receiving a plethora of awards, Diane Janice Willis is most notable for the APA Citizen Psychologist Presidential Citation in which she was awarded this in 1992. She was awarded the honor for her leadership in elevating behavioral services that are available to children and families, in specific Native American communities. An award, the Diane Willis Award Outstanding JPP Article, was coined after her in 2012. Through a life of serving others, she was also awarded the Distinguished Professional Contribution to Clinical Psychology Award in 2017. Willis is a member of the Native American Kiowa tribe and was awarded the Indian Woman of the Year by the Oklahoma Federation of Indian Women. Following this she was also awarded the Byliner Award for Distinguished Contributions in the field of medicine as well as the Nicholas Hobbs Award for Distinguished Child Advocacy by the APA Division of Child, Youth and Family Services.
 * 1992– APA Citizen Psychologist Presidential Citation
 * 2017– Distinguished Professional Contribution to Clinical Psychology Award (aka: Distinguished Contributions to the Advancement of Ethnic Minority Psychology Award )
 * Indian Woman of the Year by the Oklahoma Federation of Indian Women
 * American Indian Elder Award by the National Multicultural Conference Society
 * Byliner Award for Distinguished Contributions in the field of medicine
 * Nicholas Hobbs Award for Distinguished Child Advocacy by the APA Division of Child, Youth and Family Services

Selected publications

 * Diane Janice Willis has made several publications, but most notably, she has authored and co-authored several publications about children with disabilities. In one study, two groups of children were assigned different tasks. One group consisted of hearing children, and another consisted of deaf children. The results proved that deaf children performed better than hearing children in visual performing tasks.
 * Another study, a child with a reading disability was presented with auditory tasks. The child’s brain seemed to be making connections, but when mixed with auditory elements, the child did not make any achievement in reading perception.