Campaign to Transform the Future
APF's Campaign to Transform the Future is at the forefront of ensuring that psychology's unique perspective is front and center in finding solutions to society's problems.
Thanks to the money raised in the campaign, last year APF supported work to keep teen drivers safe — the leading cause of death for children ages 16 to 19 is motor vehicle collisions. With a $5,000 Lizette Peterson-Homer Memorial Research Grant, graduate student Haley Johnson is conducting research to better understand and prevent car accidents among teenagers with Autism Spectrum Disorder, given their deficits in social communication and interaction.
For more information about supporting research like Johnson's, please contact Rachael Lipsetts at (202) 336-5622 or email.
Eyde leaves her legacy through APF
Federal government psychologist Lorraine D. Eyde, PhD, is strengthening psychology's future through a bequest to the APF Campaign to Transform the Future.
Her bequest will establish the Lorraine D. Eyde Fund to support research on test use and ethics that aims to improve psychological testing and reduce test misuse. Eyde is the co-author of the 2010 APA book, "Responsible Test Use: Case Studies for Assessing Human Behavior."
Throughout her career, Eyde has also worked to improve the opportunities available for women psychologists, and her bequest to APF continues that commitment.
"APF helps talented psychologists get started on important careers," she says. "I want psychology to continue to prosper and serve the public."
For more information on including APF in your estate plans, visit APF or call Rachael Lipsetts at (202) 336-5622.
APF gives Giorgi the Gittler award for outstanding contributions
APF has presented Amedeo P. Giorgi, PhD, with its $7,500 Joseph B. Gittler Award, which recognizes an outstanding scholarly contribution to the philosophical foundations of psychology.
Giorgi, a professor emeritus at Saybrook University, entered the field 50 years ago at a time when there was little interest in and attention to philosophy. To address that need, in 1962 Giorgi established the first U.S. psychology doctoral program with a strong emphasis on philosophy at Duquesne University. In 1970, he founded the first psychology journal featuring philosophical psychology, the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology.
Giorgi also served as president of the Society of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology in 1973 and of the Society for Humanistic Psychology in 1987.
The award honors the memory of Joseph B. Gittler, PhD, a sociologist who focused on social philosophy and the experience of minority groups.
For more information about the award, visit APF funding.
Grantee Spotlight: Researching age-related cognitive decline and bias
In 2007, Dartmouth College cognitive neuroscience graduate student Anne Krendl received the $5,000 Violet and Cyril Franks Scholarship to fund her dissertation research on aging and stigma. With that funding, Krendl conducted research that suggests age-related cognitive decline may increase older adults' negative bias toward stigmatized individuals.
Her results — the first to use social neuroscience to examine this issue — provided the foundation for research Krendl is now conducting at Indiana University looking at the effects of aging on bias. The work has laid the foundation for a new field of research that examines social cognitive function and aging using a neuroscience approach.
Her APF-funded data led to her winning a 2009 NIH Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award, which ultimately led to a position as an assistant professor at Indiana University, where she has taught since 2012.
Krendl considers the APF scholarship one of the best funding opportunities available to today's graduate students and an integral part of her development as a researcher.
"The support enabled me to conduct an ambitious and difficult line of research that would have otherwise not been possible," she says. "I am grateful to the foundation for giving me an opportunity at a time in my career when many foundations do not. Their support gave my academic career an exciting and important turning point."
