Dr. Donna Thomas currently serves as the faculty athletics representative and chair of the Louisiana Tech Athletics Council after joining the council in 2007.
Since arriving at Louisiana Tech, Thomas has garnered much more than academic achievements in the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. In 2007, she was named a member of the Louisiana Tech Athletics Council and in 2014 was appointed by Dr. Les Guice as chair of the council and the Faculty Athletics Representative. Thomas has been involved in the hiring of more than 10 LA Tech head coaches and dozens of assistants and support personnel in her time as a member of the Athletics Council.
As the faculty athletics representative, Thomas has been designated by the university to serve as a liaison between the institution and the athletics department, and also as a representative of the institution in Conference USA and NCAA affairs. This is to ensure that the academic institution establishes the appropriate balance between academics and intercollegiate athletics, while also maintaining academic integrity and student-athlete welfare.
After earning her Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Louisiana Tech in 2005, Thomas served as Director of the Counseling Psychology Ph.D. program from 2006 to 2012. In 2011, Thomas was awarded the George and Jean Baldwin Endowed Professorship.
From 2010 to 2013, she was elected to serve on the Executive Board of the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs (CCPTP), while she was also awarded the Outstanding Service Award from Louisiana Tech's College of Education in 2010 and four consecutive years from the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences.
In 2012, Thomas was promoted to associate professor and became chair of the Louisiana Tech Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. She currently oversees a department with more than 275 undergraduate majors and 200 graduate students. Since 2007, Thomas has served as a member of the College of Education Administrative Council.
In all, Thomas has more than 17 years of clinical, administrative and academic experience in the field of psychology.
A native of Tallulah, Louisiana, Thomas earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 1997. She continued her education in 1998 with a master's degree in experimental psychology from ULM before earning her Ph.D. from Louisiana Tech in 2005.
Thomas and her husband Bob have been married since 1983 and have four children, Kathryn, Patrick, Drew and Anna Claire. Bob played baseball at Louisiana Tech in the 1970s for legendary coach Pat Patterson, while Patrick and Drew were members of LA Tech's baseball program from 2004-2010. Anna Claire graduated from Tech in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and is currently a sports information director in the athletic communications office at LA Tech. Thomas is the proud grandparent to three granddaughters, Gracyn, Kennedy and Carlyle, all of whom belong to Kathryn and her husband Mitch.
