Dr. Gary Howell
Associate Professor
Dr. Howell is an associate professor and the director of practicum training at Florida School of Professional Psychology. He has dedicated himself to advocacy and support of the LGBT community for over 20 years now. As an undergraduate student he found himself on the front lines of HIV prevention work where he provided community workshops and volunteered at an AIDS Service Organization spanning 7,000 square miles in rural Texas.
For the past several years, he has worked to create a safe space in Tampa for LGBT individuals in need of mental health services. Over the past year, he has made a tremendous mark in his work with the transgender community by providing free group therapy to transgender and gender diverse youth as well as their parents.
As an openly gay psychologist, educator, and LGBT expert, Dr. Howell strives to shed light on bullying, suicide, and homophobia where possible. He has expanded his practice, the Center for Psychological Growth, in Tampa to make an even larger presence in the LGBT community and set up a non-profit, Institute for LGBT Health and Wellbeing, with an emphasis on training, education, and LGBT research regarding health, wellness, and healthcare disparities. The ultimate goal of the nonprofit is to create a summer retreat or camp for LGBT youth and serve as a conduit for social change.
Dr. Howell is a recipient of the 2016 Florida Diversity Council’s LGBT Leader Award and was an inaugural honoree of the 2016 Tampa Bay Business Journal’s LGBT Voices. His commitment to the LGBT community began during his undergraduate years, where he advocated for HIV awareness on his college campus (Austin College). He truly lives his life according to his favorite quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Gandhi.
His passion for social justice was the inspiration for his community psychology course at FSPP and as a mentor, he has brought many students to the forefront of national leadership and advocacy efforts with APA and the Florida Psychological Association (FPA). Dr. Howell leads by example and served as an LGBT representative on the Hillsborough diversity advisory council as an inaugural member who was appointed to two terms (first as a member and ended his term as the vice-chair of the council) and has been nationally recognized as a “Guardian of Psychology” by the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students Advocacy Coordinating Team.
He is the current secretary of FPA and the immediate past-chair of the FPA diversity committee. He received the FPA Early Career Psychologist Award for his contributions to FPA as an ECP and was previously recognized for his contributions to FPA. He has given countless hours of his time to fighting LGBT causes at the local, state, and national levels. He has provided and continues to provide pro bono services to survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting. He spoke before the Tampa City Council on the need for banning conversion (reparative) therapy for LGBT individuals, a ban that was approved unanimously. He is currently the APA Division 44 (LGBT) president-elect and will assume the presidency in August. He recently ended is term as the Florida diversity delegate to the APA Practice Leadership Conference, where he served as the 2018 diversity delegate liaison-elect and the 2019 diversity liaison and diversity subcommittee chair for the APA Committee of State Leaders.
He leads all efforts of FSPP’s involvement in LGBT equality events and his practice participates in pride events as well and is the faculty advisor to the FSPP Student Psychological Association. He takes a team of graduate students and psychologists each year to ride in the SmartRide to support HIV/AIDS services in Florida. They ride 165 miles from Miami to Key West each November, and 100% of the monies raised goes back to Florida HIV/AIDS organizations. They have raised nearly $40,000 as a team since beginning the ride in 2012.
