Philip C. Kendall, PhD, ABPP was raised in Merrick, New York and currently resides in Ardmore, Pennsylvania where he and his deceased spouse, Sue, raised their two sons, Mark and Reed. Dr. Kendall is an avid NY Times crossword puzzler and plays basketball twice a week. He enjoys yardwork and the opportunity to spend time in the ocean and with his family.

Phil’s undergraduate education was completed at Old Dominion University and his doctorate in clinical psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Kendall interned at the Palo Alto VA hospital. In 1977 he took his first academic appointment in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. Phil relocated to Direct the Clinical Program at Temple University, in Philadelphia. Soon after relocating to Temple Phil opened the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic (CAADC), which has been in operation as a research-clinical service for 40 years.

Dr. Kendall is currently Distinguished University Professor at Temple University and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Temple University. His CV includes over 25 books, treatment manuals and workbooks, and with over 800 scholarly publications, most in our field’s leading journals. Throughout his work, Phil has applied rigorous experimental designs, and with his prolific scholarly writing on clinical research methodology, he has elevated the work of other psychologists seeking to evaluate treatment methods.

One of his treatment programs (e.g., Coping Cat) has been translated into numerous languages. Phil was among the very first to emphasize and articulate the critical importance of applying developmental science to treatment development, and to ensure clinical methods were compatible with children’s cognitive and socio-emotional competencies. After other scholars reviewed the literature, Coping Cat was subsequently given the elite designation of an “empirically supported treatment.” Dr. Kendall has had over 35 years of uninterrupted grant support from various agencies (e.g., NIMH; NICHD; MacArthur). He placed among an elite handful of the “Most Highly-Cited” individuals in all of the social and medical sciences (top 1%). His recent H Index is 163.

Dr. Kendall has garnered numerous awards. He won the inaugural Research Recognition Award from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, was awarded the Aaron T. Beck Award for “Significant and Enduring Contributions,” and was honored by the Society for the Science of Clinical Psychology with their Lawrence H. Cohen Outstanding Mentor Award, both in 2019. He was honored by ABCT, an association in which he has been active his entire career, with their Career/Lifetime Achievement Award and by APA with the 2025 Award for Distinguished Scientific Applications of Psychology.

Dr. Kendall is a clinical scientist, teacher/mentor, and leader. He is known for encouraging rigorous methodology (studies with “methodological niceties”), creative and integrative approaches to mental health services (e.g., the use of youth workbooks as part of mental health services), and commitment to graduate mentoring (proud of his many former graduate students who have gone forth and done great work). An active folder on his desktop is a list of former students and their current affiliation.