PEOPLE

George Albee, PhD, has received an honorary 'Doctor of the University' degree from Stirling University in Scotland. Albee, who is retired in Longboat Key, Fla., is being recognized for his work in community psychology and his publications on topics including primary prevention and Social Darwinism. In the 1950s, Albee worked for President Eisenhower?s Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health, which planned more than 2,000 national community mental health centers. He also chaired the Task Panel on Prevention for President Carter?s Commission on Mental Health. Before retiring, Albee was a professor of psychology at the University of Vermont for 25 years, and for 16 years at the Case Western Reserve University. He was APA president in 1970.

Psychologist Norman Endler received the Innis-Gernin medal from the Royal Society of Canada. Endler, a fellow of the society, was recognized for his outstanding contributions to social sciences literature, including his body of work on stress, anxiety and coping, and his contributions toward the Interaction Model of Personality Psychology, which examines the reciprocal interactions of people and situation factors. Endler is a distinguished research professor in the department of psychology at York University in Ontario, Canada, and has authored more than 200 journal articles, books and book chapters on topics including electroconvulsive therapy , conformity and depression . Last year he won the D.O. Hebb award, the highest honor bestowed by the Canadian Psychological Association. Endler received his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1958. He has been a member of the faculty at York University since 1960.

Educational psychologist David Holmes, EdD, won a distinguished service award from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. The award recognizes Holmes? contributions to education for people with autism. Holmes, an alumnus of Rutgers Graduate School of Education, founded Eden Family of Services in 1975, which is a nonprofit organization that provides lifespan services for children and adults with autism, and support and assistance for families of people with autism. Holmes is the chair of the Autism Society of America?s Panel of Professional Advisors and the chairman and commissioner of the National Commission on Accreditation of Special Education Services. He consults for the New Jersey State Department of Human Services and has been an adjunct professor of psychology at Princeton University since 1977. He is the author of the book 'Autism Through the Lifespan: The Eden Model' (Woodbine House, 1998).

The Memory and Cognition Laboratory at Brandeis University, under the direction of psychologist Arthur Wingfield, PhD, has won a Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) grant from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This is the second consecutive MERIT grant the lab has earned, an honor that is extremely rare. NIH is recognizing the lab?s innovative research on cognitive aging.

In the lab, Wingfield, a professor of psychology at Brandeis, and his colleagues examine differences in language processing between older and younger adults by examining the effects on recall of noise, fast speech and other modifications. They have found that if information is presented in a contextual framework, older people score as well on memory-recall tests as younger people.

Their findings suggest that older people compensate for memory deficits with language structure and context. Wingfield and his colleagues are using these findings and others to explore problems the elderly face, such as 'false memory,' where the brain confuses imagined information that would be a likely association with real events.

Wingfield has received the Sachar International Research Fellowship, and he has served as a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, England, and the University of California?Los Angeles. He earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford in England.

?Compiled by Jamie Chamberlin

Psychologist Gary Melton briefs Janet Reno on his research on bullying

On April 7, psychologist Gary Melton, PhD, briefed U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and other U.S. Justice Department and Department of Education officials on his research on bullying and weapon ownership in schools in the rural South. Melton is professor of neuropsychiatry and behavior science, adjunct professor of law, pediatrics and psychology, and director of the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina. He served on a panel of experts on youth violence that the Justice Department convened to gain insight on the numerous shootings in schools in the last few months.

Melton has found that high rates of gun ownership by youth in the rural South indicate more than the importance of hunting in the culture. Half of the middle school-age children he studied reported that they own guns , says Melton. One in five of gun owners say they use the weapons to get respect or instill fear.

Melton believes isolation and alienation among kids is a big contributor to violence in the schools. Changing school culture into a caring environment where parents, teachers, counselors and administrators notice and act to help children should be a priority. Melton?s research was conducted with Susan Limber, PhD, at the University of South Carolina and Phillippe Cunningham, PhD, and Scott Henggeler, PhD, at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Melton is working on a project to develop a neighborhood-based strategy for protection of children known or suspected to have been abused or neglected. He has served as a member of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, the APA Working Group on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the American Bar Association?s Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law.

He has written more than 250 publications on topics including child and family policy, rural psychology, pediatric AIDS and research ethics.

This year the South Carolina chapter of the American Professional Society on Abuse of Children honored him with the Researcher of the Year award.