About Melinda
Dr. Melinda Houston is a certified mental performance consultant through the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. She has over 20 years of experience helping performers develop a mindset that will encourage them to achieve success while also enjoying the process of getting there. She has supported athletes and coaches at all levels of competition from youth sports to the Olympic level with the mental side of their sport performance. Melinda also spends a significant amount of her consulting time with mid-career and senior-level business professionals. She’s a former track athlete who specialized in the 400m hurdles, and is currently a competitive triathlete with over 50 completed races. Her athletic pursuits (and her role as a parent of two kids) allow her the daily opportunity to strengthen her own mindset.
Originally from Southern California, Melinda attended UCLA for her undergraduate degree, Cal State Fullerton for her Masters in Kinesiology, and the University of Tennessee for her PhD in Sport Psychology. For her dissertation, Melinda interviewed elite level coaches about their experiences with stress and their coping strategies, and her study was the first to fill the void related to coaches' perceptions regarding the stress of their profession. She was later able to directly benefit from this information when she was a head collegiate strength and conditioning coach. Melinda was fortunate to have also spent 18 years as a professor, teaching courses such as Sport and Exercise Psychology, Stress Management, Psychology of Injury, and Psychology of Coaching.
In addition to her work, Melinda is fueled by her triathlon training, reading, enjoying food and connection with friends, and laughing with her son and daughter.