Dr. Martha Bernal was the first Latina to receive a Ph.D. in psychology in the United States, and contributed significantly to the advancement of ethnic minority psychology. In the early 1970s, Dr. Bernal dedicated herself to the goal of ensuring that students of color had the opportunity to receive graduate training. She applied much of her research to increase the status of ethnic minority recruitment, retention, and training. Her social action research was designed to focus attention on the dearth of ethnic minority psychologists and to recommend steps for addressing that problem. Martha Bernal was born in San Antonio, Texas on April 13, 1931, and raised in El Paso, Texas. Her parents, Alicia and Enrique de Bernal, emigrated from Mexico as young adults. She earned her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1962. Martha contributed significantly to the early development of two important areas in the field of psychology. The first was to bring the rigors of learning theory and methods to the treatment and assessment of children with behavior problems. She contributed to an increase in the use of empirically validated interventions in child treatment. Second, through both her scholarship and professional activities, she helped to advance multicultural psychology - one that recognizes the importance of diversity in training, recruitment, and research. Martha applied her interests, energies and abilities in ways that proved invaluable in helping change paradigms within the structure of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Bernal implemented strategies to increase the presence of ethnic minority students. While at the University of Denver and Arizona State University, she received numerous National Research Service Awards from NIMH and other foundations to study the training of clinical psychologists for work with ethnic minority populations. At Arizona State University, she helped sponsor an annual Ethnic Identity Symposium for several years. Dr. Bernal contributed much of her energy to leadership activities in the profession of psychology. She was involved in drafting the Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs (BEMA) by-laws and in the complex process involved in establishing the BEMA. She served on the Education and Training Committee of the BEMA, and also on the Steering Committee Task Force, which established the association which is now called the National Latino/a Psychological Association. Dr. Bernal received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Life Achievement Award from Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues), the Hispanic Research Center Lifetime Award from Arizona State University, and the Carolyn Attneave award for lifelong contributions to ethnic minority psychology. The latter award was presented at the first National Multicultural Conference and Summit, where she delivered a very moving, poignant description of surviving as a psychologist woman of color. She attended the APA convention in 2001 despite complications from her chemotherapy. She unfortunately suffered from three different bouts of cancer, including the final one, which took her life prematurely on September 28, 2001, in Black Canyon City, Arizona.

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