He was one of the founders and president of Division 45 of APA-Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues (2004-06), and was member of various committees and boards of APA. He is a member of several Divisions and honored as a Fellow member by the American Psychological Association as well as 11 APA Divisional Associations. There are over 83,000 member of APA of whom only 4,371 are fellows of APA. Only 14 out of 4,371 APA fellows are fellows of 11 or more APA Divisions.
Dr. Morales has been very active in developing programs in the community that address important health challenges. In 1984 he helped found and was the first director of the UCSF AIDS Health Program in SF, which had the first multicultural health team in San Francisco. He was one the founders and co-principal investigator of which is now known as the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) and lead the first ethnic minority team of scientists in the U.S. to generate studies on prevention of HIV in communities of color, the Multicultural Inquiry and Research on AIDS (MIRA). He also help develop substance abuse services for Latinos in S.F. in his role as an appointed member of the S.F. Citizens Alcoholism Advisory Board for seven years where he served as chair of the program committee. He also designed and launched a day treatment program in the Mission District of S.F. for Latino Adolescents. He helped found AGUILAS an HIV prevention program for Latino gay/bisexual men in S.F. where he continues to serve as its executive director of the HIV program since its inception in 1994.
Dr. Morales has an active professional career as professor of psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology-S.F. where he lead the effort in developing and establishing multicultural competencies for students and faculty and a multicultural training program. He is currently the Interim PhD Clinical Program Director at CSPP-SF. His areas of expertise include health prevention and promotion, HIV, substance abuse, community interventions, program evaluation research, and strategic planning and policy development in various types of communities and organizations.
Dr. Morales co-founded and was co-chair of the National Latino Coalition for Community Prevention, Treatment and Recovery of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). Currently, he is a member of the Hispanic Stakeholders Group of CSAT who just got funded to start a National Latino Substance Abuse Resource Center for the United States. He does consulting to various nonprofit organizations, who serve Latinos/as and other ethnic minorities throughout the United States assisting in developing their corporate infrastructure and setting up program interventions. His current research areas include interventions with drug-exposed infants and their mothers, HIV prevention interventions with Latino and African American gay/bisexual men, and interventions with high-risk ethnic minority juvenile offenders.
His resume notes him being a principal investigator or co-investigator in research grants totaling over $13,300,900, in program evaluation grant totaling over $3,330,800, and in service grants totaling over $9,668,500, for a grand total of over $26.3 million dollars in grants received mostly targeted for Latinos and other ethnic minority groups in the areas of health and prevention. His current research and practice areas include interventions with drug-exposed infants and their mothers, HIV prevention interventions with Latino and African American gay/bisexual men, interventions with high-risk ethnic minority juvenile offenders, and creating a pipeline into behavioral health careers for Latino youth.
Dr. Morales has received numerous awards for his contributions that include the 2009 American Psychological Association (APA) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Institutional Practice, the 2009 Latino Business Leadership Award presented by the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the National Latino Psychological Association 2006 Star Vega Distinguished Service Award, a Citation in 2005 for Outstanding Service and Visionary Leadership from the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues (Division 45) of the American Psychological Association (APA), the 2002 Distinguished Career Contributions to Service Award from Division 45 of the APA; the 1994 Outstanding Achievement Award given by the Committee of Lesbian and Gay Concerns of the APA; and the Distinguished Contribution Award (1991) in Ethnic Minority Issues, Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian and Gay Issues (Division 44) of the APA.
Dr. Morales received his B.S. degree at Fordham College in NYC and his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Texas Tech University where he was a Ford Foundation Fellow and a Summer Fellow at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) at Princeton, N.J.
Website: http://www.sfaguilas.org
