Froma W. Walsh, PhD, was awarded a Presidential Citation for her pioneering leadership in the field of family therapy in the development of research-informed family resilience theory and its application in clinical training and community-based practice.
Walsh's family resilience conceptual framework, grounded in systems theory and research, has been at the forefront in advancing theory, research, training and practice with individuals, families and communities facing adversity. Identifying key transactional processes that strengthen resilience, her framework has been applied worldwide in research and community-based intervention and prevention. In 25 years at the University of Chicago, as a distinguished professor and co-founder and co-director of the Chicago Center for Family Health, Walsh has been instrumental in designing training and service applications to major disasters and war-related trauma; disruptive family transitions; chronic conditions of illness/disability and multi-stress social contexts. She is past president of the American Family Therapy Academy, past editor of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, and recipient of numerous awards, including the Family Psychologist of the Year Award from the APA Society for Couple and Family Psychology (Div. 43). Walsh is a successful book author whose books have been translated into many languages, attesting to the transformative influence of her ideas, her outstanding scholarship and the international relevance of her work.