Foundation for Rehabilitation Psychology Dissertation Award

The purpose of the Foundation for Rehabilitation Psychology Dissertation Award is to assist doctoral students of psychology with research costs to promote research in the field of rehabilitation psychology.

The foundation will provide $1,000-$4,000 per award; an additional travel stipend of $500 will be given to each recipient to support his or her travel to a Division 22 or an American Board of Rehabilitation Psychology midyear meeting to present the dissertation research. The funding level of successful applications will be based on the merit of applications.

• Applicants must be graduate students of psychology in good standing with their university at an accredited program located in the United States or Canada. Applicants must be enrolled full time or working on their dissertation research for an equivalent of full-time enrollment regardless of actual registration status.
• Applicants must be APA student affiliates or associate members. Students who are not affiliates must apply for affiliation when submitting materials for the dissertation research award. The APA student affiliate membership form is available online. It can be submitted on the internet or printed and mailed to APA. If you apply for membership at the time you submit your award application, please print and send an electronic copy of the membership confirmation page receipt with your award application.
• Applicants must have had their dissertation proposals approved by their dissertation committees prior to application.
• Each psychology department (i.e., not individual programs within a department) may endorse no more than two students per year for the dissertation research award. If more than two students from a department wish to apply for these funds, the department must perform an initial screening and forward only three applications.
• The dissertation research must be in an area of psychological research relevant to rehabilitation psychology and/or disability. If you are unsure of whether your topic meets this criterion, please contact the FRP Research Funding Liaison, Dawn Ehde, PhD, for guidance.
  
• A student in a graduate department other than psychology is eligible to apply for the award only if she/he demonstrates that she/he is writing a psychological science dissertation relevant to rehabilitation psychology and that her/his graduate course of study has been primarily psychological in nature. In order to be eligible to apply for the award, the student in graduate departments other than psychology must justify this eligibility for the award by providing the foundation with the following materials:
  - Dissertation title and brief abstract.
  - Transcript of graduate coursework (unofficial copies are fine).
  - A brief written explanation of how these materials show that the graduate course of study has been primarily psychological in nature. This request for award eligibility may be submitted either separately from the application or at the time of application submission.

For questions about eligibility, applications or awardsopens in new window, contact the FRP Research Funding Liaison, Dawn Ehde, PhD, at (206) 744-2811.

2014-15 Academic Year

• Preeti Sunderaraman is a doctoral student at Drexel University. Her dissertation research is focused on financial capacity and neuropsychological performance in acquired brain injury. Her mentor is Div. 22 member, Maria Schultheis, PhD.
• Victoria Bangieva is a student at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFUMS). Her dissertation concerns coping, optimism and physiological outcomes in cardiac rehabilitation. Her dissertation chair is Lawrence Perlmuter, PhD.
• Stephanie Leung, also a student of Perlmuter and in the clinical psychology program at RFUMS, is conducting a dissertation on intergenerational psychosocial factors and health care utilization in cardiac rehabilitation.

2013-14 Academic Year

• Kaitlin Blackstone is from the San Diego State University/University of California San Diego joint doctoral program where her mentors are David Moore, PhD, and Robert Heaton, PhD. Her dissertation will evaluate the efficacy of a brief metacognitive training module for neurocognitive rehabilitation in individuals with executive dysfunction in the context of comorbid methamphetamine dependence and HIV infection.
• Michael Williams is a doctoral student at Wayne State University under the mentorship of Lisa Rapport, PhD, and Robin Hanks, PhD. His dissertation research is focused on neuropsychological predictors of engagement in rehabilitation therapy and functional independence in individuals with acquired brain injury.

2012-13 Academic Year

• Abbey Hughes is a doctoral student working at Kansas University Medical Center under the direction of Monica Kurylo. Her dissertation is focused on neuroanatomical, neurochemical and neuropsychological markers of multiple sclerosis.
• Chelsea Morse is a Drexel University student working under the direction of Maria Schultheis, PhD. Her dissertation title is “Using ecologically valid measures of neuropsychological function to predict vocational functioning in persons with Multiple Sclerosis.”