Dr. Amanda DeDiego ’09
Dr. Amanda DeDiego
Dr. Amanda DeDiego, LPC, NCC, BC-TMH, ACS is an alumnus of NGCSU from 2005 (BS; Psychology) and 2009 (MS; Counseling). After leaving North Georgia, she completed a PhD in Counselor Education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN. She is now an Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Wyoming. She seeks to conduct research and engage in advocacy to address contributors to health disparities for underserved communities. When Dr. DeDiego joined the faculty at University of Wyoming in 2016, she was tasked with developing a hybrid counseling graduate program designed for working adults. Since the inaugural year, this program has grown tremendously with an average enrollment of 40 graduate students each year currently. She has been lauded in the state of Wyoming as a consultant with the Governor's office to address a critical shortage of mental health professionals in a state with one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.
Dr. DeDiego has been recognized as a mental health expert in the Rocky Mountain region. She was featured in a Wyoming PBS series titled A State of Mind: Confronting Our Mental Health Crisis and has testified as a Licensed Professional Counselor for the Wyoming legislature on issues of mental health needs and access in the state. Dr. DeDiego has been involved with leadership and advocacy work throughout her career, including working with the American Counseling Association to advocate for Medicare reimbursement and addressing mental health workforce shortages for counselors at the federal level. She has served in officer positions for the American Counseling Association, Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, Association for Creativity in Counseling, Rocky Mountain Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, Chi Sigma Iota Honor Society, and Wyoming Counseling Association. She also sits on the board for the Natrona Collective Health Trust (formerly Wyoming Medical Center Foundation) working to address health disparities and mental health needs through social justice initiatives in Natrona County, Wyoming. In 2019, she was recognized by the American Counseling Association with the national Robert H. Rencken Emerging Professional Leader Award among other awards and accolades during her career.
She co-edited the book Creativity in Counseling Children and Adolescence: A Guide for Experiential Activities with Routledge publishers in 2021. She is currently writing a second textbook on grassroots advocacy for counselors. Additionally, she has published 38 peer-reviewed articles and 10 book chapters. Her work has been cited 260 times. She designed and produced virtual reality suicide prevention software to train clinicians in risk assessment and management skills in partnership with the University of Utah. She has given over 100 conference presentations at local, state, regional, national, and international conferences over her career. She is also a project lead for a grant initiative to build telehealth access centers at public libraries. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) practicing in Wyoming and Colorado. Her clinical focus is treating trauma disorders, specializing in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). She primarily treats complex trauma and personality disorders.