Lucy Sant’Anna Takagi Honored With 2021 Outstanding Psychologist Award

Lucy Sant’Anna Takagi, Clinical Specialist in the department of Social Work and Child Advocacy, has been selected for the 2021 Outstanding Psychologist Award from Division 31 of the American Psychological Association. This award honors a psychologist whose distinguished contributions include demonstrating outstanding leadership in State, Provincial and Territorial Psychological Association Affairs (SPTA). The award was formally presented at the Annual APA convention by the Division 31 Board President, Kathy Ashton via Zoom on Friday August 13th 7pm Eastern time zone.

“I would not be here if it wasn’t for Robert D. McCormick, PhD, a psychoanalyst who founded the Center of Child Advocacy and Policy at Montclair State University currently in the Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy, where I am privileged to work with the most talented and supportive professionals. Robert valued difference, inclusion, and multiculturalism when those words were not yet popular. He advocated for me in every corner, but unexpectedly passed away in January 2014. Robert, I know you are smiling, and I know you are proud.”
– Lucy Sant’Anna Takagi

Dr. Takagi has worked clinically with inner-city, ethnically, financially and culturally diverse populations and with adult and child victims of sexual abuse. She is a trained forensic evaluator and has done assessments and treatments of victims impacted by abuse and neglect. She has testified as an expert and fact witness in New Jersey’s civil courts. Dr. Takagi has also worked forensically, evaluating undocumented immigrants applying for documentation.

Dr. Takagi is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA); a member of the APA Division 39 (Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology; a member of the APA Division 35 (Society for the Psychology of Women; a member of the APA Division 31 (State, Provincial and Territorial Psychological Association Affairs; a member of the APA Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race; a member of the New Jersey Psychological Association (NJPA); a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and a member of the Latino Mental Health Association of NJ (LMHANJ).

In 2020, Dr. Takagi was elected President of the New Jersey Psychological Association (NJPA); 2019-2021 elected Member at Large (MAL) of the American Psychological Association (APA) Committee of State Leaders (CSL); 2019 Past-President of the Essex County Association of Psychologists (EUCAP), and a Past-President of the GSAPP Alumni Association at Rutgers University.

Dr. Takagi earned her Master’s in Educational Psychology with a concentration on Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology from Montclair State University in 1999. She received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP) at Rutgers University. Dr. Takagi is a licensed Psychologist in New Jersey and New York.