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Biola recognizes Small and our other veteran alumni and students who continue to make an impact in their communities. Biola thanks them for their dedicated service.

When the concept of psychology piqued his interest in high school, alumnus Dillon Small (Psy.D. ’15) had quite a journey ahead of him. After marrying his Kindergarten sweetheart, Rachel, the two set off toward the West Coast from the Midwest for Small to begin the Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology degree program at the Rosemead School of Psychology. He credits what he learned at Rosemead as being foundational to his approach to psychology.

“The integration of our God-given psychology and our understanding and unfolding of His mysteries ... in this case, around human flourishing at the soul level, has been absolutely instrumental in my ability to train and develop high-performance in others. I call this the Durable Mindset, and I weave many theological principles, learned at Rosemead, through it,” said Small.

While studying at Rosemead, Small embarked on another journey — the road to serving in the United States Air Force. He was accepted into the in the Air Force, marking the beginning of God's weaving of his postdoctoral education with what would become his calling.

“I still remember driving onto Camp Pendleton as a 1st Lieutenant, having no idea how to salute as the gate guard rendered their customs and courtesies,” recalled Small. “I had so much to learn in so many areas!”

It was after his residency that he was stationed in Phoenix, AZ, at (AFB).

“While there [at Luke] I served as the Family Advocacy Officer, an element within the medical group aimed at working with families experiencing relational and family difficulties, and installation suicide prevention program manager, completing prevention and awareness interventions for the base population, and partnering with the Wing Commander to understand health and risk factors for suicide amongst their personnel.”

Luke AFB is where he also began working closely with Air Force Aviators. He held a key role in the integration of senior pilots flying a more advanced jet. For Small, training the aviators in operating the new jet was impactful.

“Our job was to retrain and work through 'mental mapping’ the new controls of this jet, with customizable screens and heads-up in-helmet displays. This was really my first experience in performance psychology and helped me fall deeply in love with aviation,” said Small.

After Luke, he was called to a Special Duty Assignment to the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. He served as the Deputy Director of the Peak Performance Center, embedded within the Cadet Wing. There, he oversaw the psychological performance and well-being of over 4,000 Cadets. In 2021, Small stepped away from active duty and began serving in the Air Force Reserve. Soon after, he was hired as a civilian at the Air Force Academy as the first-ever Chief of Psychological Health for the Academy. However, he felt his heart being pulled again toward performance psychology, ultimately leading him to his current role as Director of Sport Performance Psychology within .

Small shared that teaching Cadets at the Air Force Academy has provided him with many unique opportunities to not only help them understand the demands of service, but also walk with them through the challenges. He explained that there is so much strategic and ideological effort expended to ethically, sustainably and intentionally develop warfighters and leaders of character. He considers it a significant burden and great honor to play a large role in the development of these initiatives among Cadets.

“These Cadets are amazing. The demands on their brains, bodies and souls are immense. We long for peace, and train for battle to ensure it. My experience in working on performance psychology with special operations, aviation and athletics has taught me that we must be able to hack it, (i.e., we should be able to at least attempt to experience the demands of the elite population we are working with), in order to provide the best care and training for them, and establish rapport,” said Small.

Working at the Air Force Academy also means being met with opportunities that very few would even imagine.

“I have gotten to solo freefall and navigate under canopy from over 12,000 feet, jump off a 10m platform in full gear to simulate survival scenarios over open water, ruck through the Rockies with minimal nutrition to practice survival tactics in austere and hostile environments. I have also prayed over teams suffering loss, spent hours in therapeutic appointments talking about theory of war and the existential crucible that is warfighting.”

In addition to his role at the Air Force Academy, Small answered God’s call to pursue his own private practice. He partnered with a friend and psychology colleague to create , an organization that embeds clinical mental health into schools.

“At Mindsight, we embedded clinical mental health within schools — no more long wait lists for pediatric psychology, no more leaving work to pick up a child and transport to a session, no more struggle ‘connecting the dots’ of therapy and school,” said Small. “We are there, ready to care, and it's been a very healthy business growth. We are in nearly 30 schools now, within four school districts, and 22 employees.”

Small attributes so much of his practice in both the clinical and performance psychology world to Rosemead’s pedagogy. Ultimately, he points to the Lord as the one who does powerful work in the lives and minds of human beings.

“We are deeply loved, intentionally created and have the power of the Holy Spirit with us,” said Small.

Rosemead’s Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology program equips psychologists with the knowledge, training and enhanced professional skills to care for people’s psychological needs in a variety of settings. By integrating the science of psychology with Christian theology, the program prepares graduates who understand and practice psychology as a God-ordained calling. Biola also offers a wide variety of benefits for veterans and active servicemembers. Learn more and apply to further your education at ɫ��ɫ��̳.

Written by Sarah Dougher, media relations specialist. For more information, email media.relations@biola.edu.