A licensed psychologist in her birth country, Australia, for 25 years, Dr. Pamela Ryan works globally, holding leadership positions in several international organizations. Her diverse experience as a psychologist in the organizational, political and psychosocial arenas converges her work with Psychology Beyond Borders.
As the Managing Director of Issues Deliberation Australia / America (IDA) since 1998, Dr. Ryan has led teams of psychologists, social workers, facilitators, researchers and over a thousand volunteers in numerous leading-edge public policy and research initiatives. These include building understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, Reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, feasibility of human rights legislation and parliamentary reform, "future perfect thinking" on economic development, comparisons of voters' mental maps and exploration of psychological well being in the face of fear and terror.
IDA's pioneering global work on the psychology of fear and terror led Dr. Ryan to co-found what eventually became Psychology Beyond Borders in 2005 with several other delegates from the First International Assembly on Managing the Psychology of Fear and Terror, convened by IDA in 2004. With an initial role as Executive Director, Dr. Ryan led the growth of PBB from an idea to its current status as a pioneering international humanitarian NGO dedicated to combining psychosocial service delivery with research to inform policy and practice. Dr. Ryan now chairs the PBB Board of Directors and continues to play an active role in many PBB projects.
Committed to mass education about the evidence gained from this work, Dr. Ryan has conducted hundreds of interviews for newspapers, news and current affairs programs and documentaries on television and radio, and made countless public presentations and keynote addresses, including to Congressmen and their advisors on Capitol Hill (USA), Members of Parliament and the advisors (Australia), as well as a "Newsmaker Briefing" at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.
Dr. Ryan has authored and co-authored many public policy reports, conference papers and academic articles relating to IDA and PBB projects. Dr. Ryan serves on several Boards, including a term on South Australia's Premier's Council for Women. She is Chair of the Silverton Foundation, which focuses on empowerment of disadvantaged peoples in the USA, Australia and other countries, including Ethiopia, East Timor, Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam and South Africa.
Dr. Ryan earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas. She has taught graduate and undergraduate coursework in the psychology of decision-making, qualitative research methods, entrepreneurship, organizational behavior and politics. Her research on the psychology of decision-making received one of the prestigious "Best Paper" awards of the US Academy of Management in 1995. Dr. Ryan was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of South Australia in 2007. She is a Research Fellow at the Hawke Research Institute at the University of South Australia and the Centre for Australian Studies at the University of Texas.
A dual citizen of both Australia and the USA, Dr. Ryan has shared her time between Australia and Texas for over twenty years. To balance the intensity of the work above, she is a self-confessed sports fanatic, and is a dedicated swimmer, cyclist, and Kundalini yoga and pilates practitioner. She also loves to fly single engine planes.