PEOPLE

Edward Christophersen, PhD, has been elected as an honorary fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics for his contributions to the pediatric literature and research and for his efforts to promote children's health and train future pediatricians.

Christophersen is professor of pediatrics in the developmental and behavioral sciences section of the Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., and chief psychologist of the hospital's clinical child psychology internship program. He has published widely in the children's health literature and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and as an editorial reviewer for Pediatrics for more than 20 years.

He is currently exploring the effects that stimulant medication has on homework performance in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Experimental psychologist Lawrence LeShan, PhD, has won a $25,000 award from the Fetzer Institute for his longtime commitment to relationship-centered health care. LeShan plans to use the award money to fund his independent research on the structure of human consciousness.

LeShan, who has worked with cancer patients for more than 40 years, was chosen because he is credited with developing a philosophy of therapy that emphasizes the importance of a quality relationship between a clinician and a patient.

LeShan was a psychologist for the U.S. Army in the 1940s and early 1950s. He has taught at Roosevelt University, Pace College, Union Theological Seminary and the New School for Social Research. He now consults for psychotherapists who work with terminally ill cancer patients. LeShan has written several books about cancer, including `Cancer as a Turning Point' (Penguin, 1990).

The Fetzer Institute is a nonprofit foundation that supports research, education and service programs that explore relationships between the mind, body and spirit. The Institute established the award in 1993 to honor writer and humanitarian Norman Cousins.

Dennis P. Sugrue, PhD, is the new president-elect of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT)--the nation's largest credentialling organization for professionals specializing in human sexuality. Sugrue is a practitioner who specializes in gender-related issues and the treatment of sexual dysfunction and sexual disorder. When his presidency begins in 2000, Sugrue plans to increase education about the benefits of membership in AASECT and expand postgraduate training opportunities in sex education and sex therapy.

In July, Sugrue left his position as associate division head of outpatient psychiatry at the Henry Ford Health System--where he'd worked for 20 years--to enter private practice in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. He is co-authoring a book about female sexuality.

The American Evaluation Association has presented Abraham Wandersman, PhD, with its highest honor--the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for Cumulative Contributions to Evaluation Practice. The award recognizes Wandersman's efforts to help communities evaluate their own human and social service programs, as well as his contributions to the community and environmental psychology research and literature.

Wandersman, who has taught at the University of South Carolina since 1978, has written or edited 11 books, including `Prevention Plus III: Assessing Alcohol and other Drug Prevention Programs at the School and Community Level,' (Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, 1991), which provides communities with guidelines for self-evaluation. His vast research on community development has been funded by organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the National Science Foundation.

Dyre gets grant to reduce pilot workload

Armed with a grant from the U.S. Air Force, University of Idaho psychologist Brian Dyre, PhD, is looking for a way to minimize pilots' workload during flight by tapping into an underused resource--the pilot's peripheral visual field. Dyre is investigating the possibility of using peripheral virtual displays in aircraft cockpits to present vital information for speed and spatial orientation such that pilots' workload is reduced.

Dyre got the idea for the project while he was conducting postdoctoral research at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. There, he noticed that even the most cutting-edge cockpit designs did not use the peripheral visual field for information display.

The design of most aircraft cockpits requires pilots to look out the window or glance at a speed indicator to gauge how fast they are traveling. But pilots have intense workloads--especially during combat where, in addition to battling enemy aircraft, they must monitor their location, speed and fuel at all times. So Dyre, whose expertise is the visual psychophysics of motion perception, wanted to see if displaying important information peripherally could free up some of a pilot's precious time. And with a background in mechanical and aeronautical engineering, Dyre had the technical expertise to tackle the problem himself.

`The idea is to try to reduce the pilot's workload by presenting them the information in a more natural way,' he says.

With a three-year, $475,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Dyre is investigating two questions: Can a pilot process spatial orientation information peripherally? And if so, what is the most effective design for peripheral displays? His preliminary data suggests that the peripheral visual field is much more important than previous research in this area has found, says Dyre.

If he and his team reach their goal of identifying how the peripheral visual system contributes to spatial orientation before the grant period ends, Dyre hopes to test some prototypical peripheral displays.

--Jamie Chamberlin



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