David B. Baker


Dr. David B. Baker is a counseling psychologist and the Margaret Clark Morgan Executive Director of the Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron. From 2000-2009 he served as the archivist and historian for the Society of Counseling Psychology (Division 17). He was also the 2011 recipient of the Excellence in Librarianship Award from the American Psychological Association Publication.

Dr. Baker was recently interviewed on PBS’s Newshour (link to interview video) regarding newly found reels of interviews of some of the earliest testimonies of Holocaust survivors. For three years, media specialists at the University of Akron worked to build a playback machine to play the reel. Once completed, scholars heard for the first-time the songs of Holocaust survivors. These songs were a way for concentration camp prisoners to orally preserve what they were going through. In the interview, Dr. Baker describes them as, “a bit like hearing the voice of a ghost. Here are voices that have been silent for 70 years, and all of the sudden, they’re singing.”

This SCP Membership Spotlight compiled by:

Mercedes Fernández Oromendia, MA
Counseling Psychology Doctoral Candidate
University of California, Santa Barbara


Tags: Posted on: July 10th, 2017