Gail E. Wyatt

In 2016, while serving as Director of the Semel Institute's Center for Culture, Trauma and Mental Health Disparities, Wyatt was honored with the UCLA Faculty Career Commitment to Diversity DEI Award.

Wyatt received the Carolyn Wood Sherif Award from the Society for the Psychology of Women in 1995. In 2017, she received the APA Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Trauma Psychology and in 2019, was named Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town.

Wyatt received the American Psychological Association (APA) Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy Award in 1992. The award citation noted her "research significantly advancing our understanding of the effects of abortion, childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual practices among women, particularly African-American women, and establishing research methods and tools to create culturally appropriate measures of these critical issues."

In 1969, Wyatt began working as a research assistant at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Neuropsychiatric Institute and enrolled in the educational psychology program, where she was mentored by Norma Feshbach. Wyatt completed her dissertation, which focused on locus of control and stressors experienced by low-income African-American mothers, and graduated with a PhD from UCLA in 1973. Wyatt continued on at UCLA and became the first African-American woman to receive training as a sex therapist at the Neuropsychiatric Institute (1974–1975). From there, she launched her clinical and research career, investigating sexual stereotypes and sexuality of African-American women.

Gail Elizabeth Wyatt (born 1944) is a clinical psychologist and board-certified sex therapist known for her research on consensual and abusive sexual relationships and their influence on psychological well-being. She is Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Wyatt was the first African American woman in the state of California to receive a license to practice psychology and first African American woman to be named a Full Professor of the UCLA School of Medicine.

Wyatt was born in Ft. Worth, TX in 1944. She attended Fisk University where she completed her bachelor's degree in 1965 and master's degree in 1975, under the mentorship of Henry Tomes. Wyatt worked for Lloyd Dunn as part of the effort to standardize the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and, subsequently, as a school psychologist in Baltimore, MD.