Bruce E. Wampold, who was trained in mathematics (BA, University of Washington) before earning his doctorate in Counseling Psychology (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara), is Professor Emeritus of Counseling Psychology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, Senior Researcher at the Research Institute at Modum Bad Psychiatric Center in Vikersund, Norway. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and Board Certified in Counseling Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology.

Currently his work involves understanding counseling and psychotherapy from empirical, historical, and anthropological perspectives, which has led to the development of a contextual model from which to understand the benefits of counseling and psychotherapy. His work is summarized in The Great Psychotherapy Debate: The Evidence for How Psychotherapy Works (with Z. Imel, Taylor and Francis, 2015). He is recipient of the of the 2007 Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research Award from the American Psychological Association, the 2015 Distinguished Research Career Award from the Society for Psychotherapy Research, and the 2019 Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Application of Psychology from the American Psychological Foundation.