Alexander Katopis, Field Placement Coordinator, Lecturer, and Interim Chair of the Department of Counselor Education, received the Maine Mental Health Counselors Association’s Distinguished Service Award at the annual conference of the Maine Mental Health Counselors Association on October 2, 2026. The award is given to a clinical mental health counselor who has shown exceptional commitment and service to the counseling profession and the communities they serve. It is an award that is given to an individual who has consistently demonstrated excellence in their practice, providing compassionate care and support to clients while also contributing to the advancement of the counseling field. Through their dedication, leadership, and unwavering commitment to ethical practice, they have made a lasting impact on the lives of their clients and colleagues and set a new standard of excellence for others to follow.
Alexander embodies what this award represents. He works tirelessly to nurture and advocate for training partners across the State of Maine to create opportunities for students and emerging professionals. He has designed and updated best practices for onboarding adjunct faculty responsible for supervising students in practicum and internship, and he continuously cultivates and expands sites and opportunities for students and emerging professionals to learn and grow in the profession.
If all of this was not enough, when University of Southern Maine students were facing the possibility of having to put off their practicum and internship for a year or more, threatening their ability to complete their Master’s degree, he worked with two colleagues to found a 501(c)3 non-profit organization to pair practicum students with clients on long waitlists, addressing, not just student needs, but the needs of vulnerable people across the state of Maine.
Beyond his work at the University of Southern Maine and with The Collaborative Counseling Laboratory, Alexander maintains a private practice and co-owns R&K Wellness in Waterville, where in both places he delivers person-centered care and clinical supervision. To add to this impressive dossier, Alexander is also the author of one book on clinical supervision and is co-author of two forthcoming books, one on the ethics of private practice and the other on the use of the Greek myth of the labyrinth in counseling practice.
In addition to Alexander being recognized for his distinguished service, University of Southern Maine Counselor Education student Ryan McAtee received the Donald Matteson Outstanding Student Award at the American Mental Health Counselors Association’s annual conference in June of 2026 and was recognized during the award ceremony on October 2. Ryan is a graduate of the University of Maine at Fort Kent and is in his second year as a student in USM’s CE program. As an undergraduate, he received recognition for scholarship on the role of social influence in adolescent identity formation. As a graduate student, he has collaborated with faculty across the University of Maine System and, as a first-year graduate student, presented with his mentor, Shawn Graham, PhD., LCPC, Associate Professor of Counseling and Psychology at the University of Maine at Presque Isle and Adjunct Instructor of Counselor Education at USM, at the annual conference of the American Counseling Association. In the nomination for the award, Dr. Graham explains, “[Ryan] is not merely a student of counseling; he is a burgeoning leader who is already shaped by the ethics and orientation of the clinical mental health counseling professional.”
Congratulations to both Alexander Katopis and Ryan McAtee!