Antonio Puente

Antonio E. Puente is an American neuropsychologist and academic. He was the 125th president of the American Psychological Association in 2017. He has a private practice, is the founding director of a bilingual mental health clinic, and is on the Department of Psychology faculty at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). He founded the journal Neuropsychology Review.

Biography

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1952, Puente earned an AA from Florida Junior College, an undergraduate degree at the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. He is married to Linda Puente and has three children: Krista Puente Trefz, clinical psychologist in Stuart, Florida; Antonio Nicolas Puente, Chief Psychologist at George Washington University School of Medicine; Lucas Llanso Puente, Senior Data Scientist at SalesForce.

Puente is a neuropsychologist and a psychology professor at UNCW. He founded and directs the Cape Fear Clinic, a bilingual mental health clinic in Wilmington, North Carolina, for underserved populations.^[1] He maintains a private practice in clinical neuropsychology, ranging from clinical to forensic assessments.

He founded and edited the journals Neuropsychology Review for ten years and Interprofessional Education & Practice for five years, and is the author/editor of 11 books, 95 book chapters, and 125 journal articles in Arabic, English, Italian, Spanish, and Russian.^[2] He has been president of several other psychological societies including the North Carolina Psychological Association, North Carolina Psychological Foundation, Hispanic Neuropsychological Society, National Academy of Neuropsychology, and APA three Divisions- Society for Clinical Neuropsychology, Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology, and Society for Global Psychology.

Before joining the UNCW faculty in 1981, where he teaches brain and behavior, neuropsychology, and the history of psychology, Puente was a neuroanatomy professor at St. George's University School of Medicine in Grenada. He is a visiting professor at UCLA and the University of Granada in Spain, as well as an Honorary Professor of Psychology at Moscow State University.^[3]

Puente has served on several APA and related society boards and committees. He spent 15 years as a representative to the American Medical Association's committee on Current Procedural Terminology. He served on the actual CPT Panel for eight years before becoming the 125th President of the APA in 2017.^[1] Puente had four foci during his term as APA president: improving governance, membership engagement, psychology's international presence, and the APA Convention.^[4]

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