Dr. Mel Gary was one of the founding members of the New Jersey Chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists and served as the chapter’s president from 1979 to 1981.

 

He was a mentor to and advocate for its student members and its early career psychologists. The “NJ ABP Dr. Mel Gary Student Scholarship for Conference Presentations” was established in 2017 to honor his legacy of mentorship and to support students’ professional development.

 

Dr. Gary held faculty and executive positions at Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick campus) for 33 years, including Assoc. Dean of Rutgers’ Livingston College, Assoc. Dean of Students, and Assoc. Professor in the Dept. of Psychology. He was an essential
player in the founding of Rutgers’ Livingston College in the early 1970s. He was also an Asst. Professor of Psychology at Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) for one year before coming to Rutgers. He encouraged many of his promising undergraduate students to seek a graduate
education.

Dr. Gary earned a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) and a B.A. in Psychology from Haverford College (Haverford, PA). He was a Fellow of the American Council on Education (ACE) and was assigned to the Chancellor’s Office at UCLA
(Los Angeles, CA). His research and professional interests included cross-cultural relations and multicultural counseling.

He retired to the Jersey Shore (Ocean County, NJ) and enjoyed computers, jazz, politics, and travel. He is deceased.