Volume 18: No. 7, July 2004

July 2004 Announcements

Five psychologists were awarded the Meritorious Research Service Commendation. This award, developed by the Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) recognizes outstanding psychologists who help foster the discipline through their programmatic activities in support of psychological science. BSA members developed this award to provide a clear mechanism for recognizing the important ways that programmatic contributions can advance the discipline.

Psychologists in funding agencies can play a crucial role in the development of the discipline -- in running the programs that fund psychological scientists, in identifying new opportunities and directions, in working with the science community to chart needs and challenges, in serving as a catalyst for promoting cutting edge opportunities, and in shepherding behavioral research within their institutions.

Nominations were solicited during the winter of 2003 and 2004 and the recipients are:

Ronald P. Abeles [Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), National Institutes of Health (NIH)]
Dr. Abeles is Special Assistant to the Director, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), in the Office of the Director, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is being recognized for raising the standards of psychological science, increasing the skill levels of researchers, and introducing psychologists to cutting edge interdisciplinary research through his leadership roles at the National Institute on Aging, the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, and the Health and Behavior Coordinating Committee at NIH.

Israel I. Lederhendler [National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)]
Dr. Lederhendler is Chief of the Basic Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIHM). He is also serving as Interim Director of the Electronic Research Administration at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is being recognized for his advocacy of outstanding psychological research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and for his dedication to the interests and needs of psychological researchers.

G. Reid Lyon [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)]
Dr. Lyon is Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of the NICHD. He is being recognized for his leadership of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of NICHD and for enhancing the understanding and appreciation of psychological science to members of Congress, the President of the United States, and the educational community. In addition, his direction of the program on reading and learning disabilities has had a major impact on the shaping of education research and public policy decisions.

Willo Pequegnat [National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)]
Dr. Pequegnat is Associate Director for Prevention, Translation and International Research and NIMH Senior Prevention Scientist at the Center for Mental Health Research on AIDS in the Division of Mental Disorder, Behavioral Research and AIDS, NIMH. She is being recognized for her leadership role in HIV prevention research initiatives sponsored by NIMH and for her mentoring of young behavioral scientists entering the field of AIDS behavioral research.

Anita M. Sostek [National Institutes of Health (NIH)]
Dr. Sostek is Director, Division of Clinical and Population-Based Studies, Center for Scientific Review at the NIH. She is being recognized for her leadership at the Center for Scientific Review for ensuring that reviews are fair, equitable, and maintain the highest of scientific standards. In addition, she has served as an outstanding mentor and source of information to scientists in the field.

The recipients of the 2004 commendations will be honored at the December 2004 APA Board of Directors meeting and at a luncheon at the Spring, 2005 meeting of BSA.

The recipients of the Meritorious Research Service Commendation for the last two years were:

2003: Steven J. Breckler (National Science Foundation)
Edgar M. Johnson (Army Research Institute)
Peter G. Kaufmann (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH)
Lisa S. Onken (National Institute of Drug Abuse, NIH)
Delores Parron (National Institutes of Health)

2002: Rodney Cocking (awarded posthumously) (National Science Foundation)
Robert Croyle (National Cancer Institute, NIH)
Sarah Friedman (National Institutes of Child Health & Human Development, NIH)
David Shurtleff (National Institute of Drug Abuse, NIH)
Joseph Young (National Science Foundation)

Nominations for the 2005 awards will be accepted beginning in the fall. For additional information, and nomination forms, please see: http://www.apa.org/science/meritorious.html.

Kathleen McDermott of Washington University in St. Louis has been named the recipient of the 2004 F. J. McGuigan Young Investigator Prize in recognition of her achievements in several areas of research in human memory. Combining behavioral techniques with those of functional magnetic resonance imaging, she has already made striking and influential contributions to the field. McDermott's research falls roughly into three areas: false memory, neural substrates of memory, and implicit measures of memory.

McDermott is the second recipient of the biennial prize; the first was Steven Luck of the University of Iowa. The award is funded through the American Psychological Foundation and administered by the APA Science Directorate. For more information please visit its website at http://www.apa.org/science/mcguigan.html.

The APA Advanced Training Institute (ATI) program has been extremely successful at training researchers in innovative techniques such as fMRI and structural equation modeling. ATIs are held over the summer, and last anywhere from two-and-a-half days to an entire week.

In 2005, the Science Directorate will be looking to expand the program into new areas - ideas mentioned so far have included behavioral genetics, media technologies, geographic information systems, and others. We'd like to hear more.

If there's an area you're interested in, and that would fit in with the basic ATI format, please let us know! Send your idea to us via email, calling the subject "Proposal 05." If you'd like to learn more about the program, please visit its website at http://www.apa.org/science/ati.html.

The American Psychological Foundation (APF) is offering up to three $20,000 Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Scholarships to support graduate studies in child psychology in 2005.

The purpose of these scholarships is to nurture excellent scholars in the broad area of the psychology of the child, such as developmental, child-clinical, pediatric, school psychology, educational psychology and developmental psychopathology. Support will be from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31 each year. The award includes travel costs to attend the APA pre-conference workshop for Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Graduate Fellows at the APA Convention and other relevant conferences as funds allow. APF will also award travel stipends of $4,000 to runners-up to enable their travel to APA’s convention and to encourage travel to other conferences as funds allow.

Graduate students who have achieved doctoral candidacy are eligible to apply. Students can apply before having passed their qualifying exams, but proof of having advances to doctoral candidacy will be required before funds are released. Consideration will be given to psychological research that breaks new ground or creates significant new understandings that facilitate children’s and youth’s development or functioning.

The deadline to apply is November 15, 2004. Recipients will be announced on or after February 15, 2005. For complete application guidelines, please visit APF’s website, www.apa.org/apf, or send a request via email to the APF office.

The American Psychological Foundation (APF) seeks applications for the Roy Scrivner Research Grants, which promote research on lesbian, gay, and bisexual family psychology and therapy. The Scrivner Fund provides postdoctoral grants of up to $10,000 and graduate student grants of up to $1,000 each, with preference given to dissertation candidates. Researchers from all fields of the behavioral and social sciences are encouraged to apply.

Applicants for the postdoctoral research award, including co-investigators, must have a doctoral degree. Applicants for the student grants must be enrolled in a graduate program and have a letter of support from their supervising professor. All research involving human subjects must be approved by an institutional review board from the principal investigator’s institution.

The application deadline is November 1, 2004. Application guidelines are available from www.hookerprograms.org or by contacting the APF office via email.