PEOPLE

Anne Anderson, PhD, national coordinator for the Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), received $25,000 from the 1999 Joe F. Wall Sesquicentennial Service Award, sponsored by Grinnell College in Iowa, for the many hours she has spent on cultural peace efforts and for her personal commitment to the International Peace Practitioners Network (IPN), a joint project supported by PsySR and APA's Div. 48 (Peace).

The award allows Grinnell graduates to support their involvement in a program or organization committed to helping others improve their way of life.

Anderson, a Grinnell alumnus, says she will use the money to fund IPN, the network aimed at allowing psychologists from around the world to unite and create dialogue on peace-related issues. Through IPN, psychologists can share their knowledge on research questions and policy recommendations. IPN plans to provide psychological perspectives and informed commentary for the 2000 International Year for the Culture of Peace, an effort to bring nations together to encourage cultural diversity, cooperation, dialogue and reconciliation, sponsored by the United Nations.

For more information on IPN, contact PsySR at (202) 745-7084, e-mail: psysrusa@compuserve.com.

Substance-abuse researcher Robert Balster, PhD, has received the Excellence in Research, Teaching and Service Award from the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), the most prestigious award given to a VCU faculty member. Balster, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology and the director of VCU's Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies, has been a faculty member at VCU since 1972.

Balster's research program explores the neurobehavioral basis of drug dependence, with an emphasis on phencyclidine (PCP) and inhalant abuse. In fact, he leads one of the few basic research laboratories in the world that is studying inhalant abuse. Balster's research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1976. In 1993 he won the National Institute on Drug Abuse Merit Award.

Balster served on APA's Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) from 1994 to 1996, and chaired BSA in 1995. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Thanks to Stephen Behnke, JD, PhD, practitioners in every state may spend less time deciphering the state mental health statutes. Behnke, director of the program for the practice of scientific integrity and instructor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and psychology practitioner at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, saw a need to demystify mental health law for clinicians, so he sent a proposal to a publishing company for a book on Massachusetts mental health law.

He sought a book deal with W.W. Norton & Co., who liked the idea for the Massachusetts book so much that they asked him to write a state-by-state series of books about state mental health laws.

Behnke has completed the Massachusetts and California guides and is now finishing the New York and Florida editions. To write each book, he teams up with state attorneys who specialize in mental health law. The next books on Behnke's state-to-state tour are New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Each book has a similar format. Behnke and his attorney co-authors provide an overview of mental health law in the state and in-depth answers to the questions most frequently asked by practitioners in that state.

Stanley Coren, PhD, Jagannath Prasad Das, PhD, and Mark Zanna, PhD, are among the 61 new Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, the country's senior academic honor.

Coren is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. He has a broad range of research expertise that includes visual illusion, sleep and arousal, and the behavior and comparative intelligence of dog breeds.

Das, a leading intelligence researcher, is a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and former director of the Developmental Disabilities Centre at the school.

A social psychologist at the University of Waterloo for 25 years, Zanna explores the structure and function of people's attitudes and the links with behavior.

Retired private practitioner Louise Evans, PhD, has been selected as one of the 2,000 Outstanding Scientists of the 20th Century by the International Biographical Center, the European equivalent of Who's Who in America®. She was honored for her extensive volunteer work and for promoting the profession of clinical psychology.

As one of the original members of the International Council of Psychologists, Evans helped expand the organization while holding several leadership positions. She also founded the Orange County Psychological Association in California, which has provided extensive pro bono services to the county.

Evans is active in 20 professional organizations and is a fellow in 16 of them, including APA. She earned her clinical psychology doctorate at Purdue University, which has honored her with a distinguished alumna award.

Social and organizational psychologist Bernardo Ferdman, PhD, is the new president-elect of the Interamerican Society of Psychology (SIP). Ferdman is an associate professor of organizational psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology, and a management consultant with the school's Organizational Consulting Center.

As SIP president, Ferdman plans to broaden academic and professional exchanges among psychologists in North America, Central America and South America. Ferdman has served as the treasurer and the U.S. national representative for SIP. His presidential term is July 2001 to July 2003.

With the help of his "traveling brain show," Wesley Jordan, PhD, is working to interest middle school students in psychology. As part of Bright Futures--a state-funded initiative to encourage talented but economically disadvantaged students to attend college--Jordan visits Maryland schools, using the brains of animals and humans to explain how psychologists explore the relationship between the brain and behavior. He demonstrates visual illusions and memory tasks and poses questions about their pets' behavior as a way to explain his work as an animal researcher.

"I try not to make my presentation into a lesson, but just an exposure to what psychologists do to get them primed in a small way for the breadth of the field," he says. "I want them to leave with some unanswered questions."

Jordan described his experiences at the National Forum on Psychology Partnerships conference held at James Madison University in June. He and several other psychology teachers are exploring ways to introduce psychological science to greater numbers of young students through a project called "Psy in Pscience: Modifying the Public Perception of Psychology."

For more information on the "Psy in Pscience" project, visit the Psychology Partnerships web site at http://www.apa.org/ed/p3.html.

Temple University distinguished professor of psychology David Kipnis, PhD, died in August. He had taught at Temple for 30 years.

Kipnis was an associate editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology, and a consulting editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He wrote several books on the social aspects of technology, including "Technology and Power" (Springer-Verlag, 1990).

Since applying for a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to explore the public's perception of Y2K, Donald MacGregor, PhD, has been pulling double duty.

In June NSF asked him to serve as the foundation's Y2K behavior expert through Jan. 1, 2000, in addition to conducting his own research, and since then he's spoken with countless television programs, radio shows, technology magazines, even the Australian public broadcasting system, about why people are nervous about and fearful of Y2K.

"Society rarely has a risk issue that resolves itself at such a precise time," says MacGregor. "It has stimulated the question of whether we have outstripped our ability to control technology."

MacGregor, a senior research psychologist at the Decision Science Research Institute in Eugene, Ore., is exploring the social amplification involved with Y2K, or whether the media is expanding people's perceptions of risks and hazards related with the millennium. He is conducting two surveys about technology risk this fall and an analysis of media reporting on the millennium. Next year, he plans to look at how Y2K has altered people's confidence in technology.

Testing expert Kevin Moreland, PhD, died in a car accident while traveling to California in late August. He was 43. One of the country's leading experts on psychological testing, Moreland had been moving to California to expand his expertise to include assessing and treating brain injuries through a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at the University of California-Davis.

After earning his PhD in child clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Moreland worked in test development for the National Computer Systems for six years. He went on to teach in the psychology department at Fordham University, where he won Teacher of the Year Award from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences towards the end of his 10-year career there.

Devoted to the responsible use of psychological tests, Moreland served two three-year terms as one of APA's two delegates on the Joint Committee of Testing Practices. As a delegate, Moreland developed training materials to educate psychologists about proper testing and helped to produce a list of the rights and responsibilities of test takers. Moreland also served on the Committee on Psychological Testing and Assessment from 1996-99. He also was a member of the APA Task Force on Test User Qualifications and the Board of Professional Affairs (BPA) Psychological Assessment Working Group.

Lisa M. Porché-Burke, PhD, is the new president of the Phillips Graduate Institute--a graduate school, training and counseling center in Encino, Calif. Porsché-Burke leaves her seven-year post as chancellor of the California School of Professional Psychology to run Phillips.

Porché-Burke is a member of APA's Council of Representatives and an organizer of the National Multicultural Summit and Conference.

APA and the New Jersey Psychological Association (NJPA) have recognized Raymond Rosen, PhD, and Warren Reich, PhD, for their outstanding contributions to psychological research and literature, and Sandra Lee, PhD, for her outstanding teaching career.

Rosen received the Distinguished Researcher Award for expanding knowledge of the psychology of human sexuality. A professor of psychiatry and co-director of the Sexual Counseling Service at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, he recently has been conducting clinical trials for the drug Viagra and developing research instruments and protocols for its use. He is past president of the International Academy of Sex Research.

Reich was honored with the Emerging Researcher Award for his research on ego development, identity and attachment in adults. Currently a visiting assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toledo, he has also studied the psychological impact of communications technologies and the Internet. Reich earned his PhD from Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

Lee, a professor of psychology at Seton Hall University, has won the Distinguished Teacher Award for her outstanding teaching and administrative career at Seton Hall. She has served as director of the clinical psychology program and also as chairperson of the psychology department at Seton Hall. She is recognized for her outstanding mentoring skills, having helped many students become productive clinicians and researchers.

Byron P. Rourke, PhD, has received the Canadian Psychological Association's (CPA) 1999 Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science, the most prestigious scientific honor that CPA awards. Rourke, a professor of psychology at the University of Windsor in Ontario, won for his neuropsychological research on learning disabilities.

In 1994, Rourke received the association's award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Profession, and in 1997 he was selected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Organizational psychologist Laurence Stybel, EdD, has been elected to the board of directors of the National Human Resource Association (NHRA) and as co-president of the Boston Human Resources Association, the largest chapter of NHRA.

Stybel is co-founder of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire, a Boston firm that helps companies acclimate their new executive employees.

Moshe Zeidner, PhD, has founded and will serve as the first director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Emotions at the University of Haifa in Israel. The center will fund research on emotions from an interdisciplinary perspective, including psychology, neuroscience, physiology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, literature, linguistics and history.

Zeidner is a visiting professor at the Center for the Study of Education and Instruction at Leiden University in Holland. He conducts research on stress and coping--recently, he has studied how people coped with ballistic missile attacks during the Gulf War. He is also doing research on the role of emotional intelligence in helping people regulate their emotions in stressful encounters.

The Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Emotions will host an international conference on emotional intelligence this month. Researchers interested in the center can contact Zeidner at M_Zeidner@hotmail.com.

--Compiled by J. Chamberlin and M. Waters





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