Volume 18: No. 5, May 2004

May 2004 Announcements

Elizabeth Loftus is a distinguished professor in the department of psychology and social behavior and department of criminology, law, and society at the University of California, Irvine. Her studies over the years have been deeply involved with human memory and how facts, ideas, suggestions and other forms of information told after an event can modify memories.

Walter Mischel is a Robert Johnson Niven Professor of Humane Letters in Psychology at Columbia University. His research concentrates on personality structure, processes and development; self-control and personality inferences.

Elissa Newport’s primary research interest is in the acquisition of language, and in the relationship between language acquisition and language structure. She is a George Eastman Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics and chair, department of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. Additional information about the institution is available on the Internet at http://national-academies.org. A full directory of NAS members can be found online at http://national-academies.org/nas.

Psychologists elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences are Marilynn B. Brewer, Professor of Psychology, Ohio State University; Dedre Gentner, Professor of Psychology and of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University; Mark R. Lepper, Professor and Chair of Psychology, Stanford University; and Norbert Schwarz, Professor of Psychology, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Elected to the Academy (under Class V -Public Affairs, Business, and Administration, Section 3, Educational, Scientific, Cultural, and Philanthropic Administration) was Frances D. Horowitz, President of the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York.

Huda Akil, Gardner C. Quarton Professor of Neurosciences, University of Michigan; Thomas James Carew, Bren Professor & Chair of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine; and Ned J. Block, Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, New York University, were also elected. The current membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is over 4,500 and includes more than 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. For a full list of newly elected members, please visit: http://www.amacad.org/news/new2004.htm.

The Science Directorate is currently seeking proposals for research conferences in psychology. The purpose of this program is to promote the exchange of important new contributions and approaches in scientific psychology.
The next deadline for applications is June 1, 2004.

Grant money ranging from $500 to $20,000 is available for the scientific conference. Proposals will be considered using such formats as “add-a-day” conferences ($500-$3,000 available), “stand alone” conferences ($5,000-$20,000 available), and festschrifts ($5,000-$20,000 available). The conference must be additionally supported by the host institution with direct funds, in-kind support, or a combination of the two. Conference proposals must meet the following eligibility requirements:

• One of the primary organizers must be a member of APA.
• Only academic institutions accredited by a regional body may apply. Independent research institutions must provide evidence of affiliation with an accredited institution. Joint proposals from cooperating institutions are encouraged.
• Conferences may be held only in the United States, its possessions, or Canada.

APA governance groups, APA Divisions and other related entities are not eligible for funding under this program.

Conference manuscripts shall be submitted to APA after the conference is held for publication in PsycEXTRA, a companion database to the scholarly PsycINFO. PsycEXTRA is designed to link researchers, academics, clinicians, librarians, consumers, and policy-makers to a variety of information sources covering psychology, behavioral science, and health; PsycEXTRA provides the readership with original documents. Please note that the publication component of this program has changed.

Conference review committee members are: Anita Davis, Michael Domjan, Irene Frieze, Keith Humphreys, John Kihlstrom, Kevin Murphy, and Sheldon Zedeck.

For more information on review criteria, proposal contents, and budget guidelines, please refer to the APA website at http://www.apa.org/science/confer2.html or contact Deborah McCall, Science Program Manager, at (202) 218-3590.

PROPOSAL DEADLINE: June 1, 2004
Please mail proposals to:
APA Science Directorate
750 First Street, NE
Attn: Scientific Conferences Proposals
Washington, DC 20002-4242
http://www.apa.org/science/confer2.html

Robert Wurtz, 1997 APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award recipient, William Newsome, 2002 APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award recipient, and Amiram Grinvald have won the Dan David Prize for their contributions toward mapping the connections between neural processes and behavior. They share a $1 million prize.

Wurtz does research in behavioral neurophysiology of the visual system and he is currently at the National Eye Institute. Newsome, is a leading researcher in the fields of sensory and cognitive neuroscience, at Stanford University. They were honored for investigating neural processes that underlie visual perception and visually guided behaviors. Grinvald, a neuroscientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, was honored for his work on information processing in the mammalian cortex and for designing optical methods for imaging neuronal activity in the living brain.

The Dan David Prize is a joint international enterprise endowed by the Dan David Foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University. Three prizes of $1 million each are granted annually for achievements having an outstanding scientific, technological, cultural or social impact on our world. Each year fields are chosen within the three Time Dimensions — Past, Present and Future. The laureates for a given year are chosen from these fields.

The Dan David Prize is unique in its flexible definition of dynamically changing fields of human knowledge and in its process of fostering the next generation of scholars. The laureates annually donate 20 scholarships of $15,000 each to outstanding doctoral students throughout the world, in the chosen fields.

The APA Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) invites nominations for its ongoing awards program. Awards are given in three categories: The Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award is presented to individuals who have made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology. The Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology is given to individuals who have made exceptional theoretical or empirical advances in psychology leading to the understanding or amelioration of important practical problems.

To submit a nomination for the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award for the Applications of Psychology, you should provide a letter of nomination, the nominee's current vita with list of publications, and the names and addresses of several scientists who are familiar with the nominee's work.

The Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology is awarded to outstanding young psychologists who are 9 years or less post-PhD (1995 or later). The 2005 Early Career Awards will be given in the five areas:

• behavioral and cognitive neuroscience
• social
• perception, motor performance
• applied research (e.g., treatment and prevention research, industrial/organizational research, educational research)
• individual differences (e.g., personality, psychometrics, mental ability, behavioral genetics)

The categories should be interpreted broadly and are not meant to be exclusive; all areas of psychology are of sufficient merit to be considered for awards.

To submit a nomination for the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology, you should provide a letter of nomination, the nominee's current vita with list of publications, and up to five representative reprints.

To obtain nomination forms and more information, you can go to the Science Directorate web page (www.apa.org/science/sciaward.html) or you can contact Suzanne Wandersman, Science Directorate, American Psychological Association, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242; by phone, (202) 336-6000; by fax, (202) 336-5953; or by E-mail.

THE DEADLINE FOR ALL AWARD NOMINATIONS IS JUNE 1, 2004

The American Psychological Foundation (APF) and the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology (COGDOP) are jointly offering graduate research scholarships, including the $2,000 Clarence J. Rosecrans Scholarship, the $3,000 Ruth G. and Joseph D. Matarazzo Scholarship, as well as a number of $1,000 scholarships. The scholarships will be given directly to the individual graduate students enrolled in an interim master's program or doctoral program. DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: MAY 28, 2004.
For more information, visit http://www.apa.org/science/apf-cogdop.html.