Each year, APF honors the outstanding contributions of psychologists through its Gold Medal awards and a top psychology teacher with its Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award. The awards will be presented at the APA/APF Awards Ceremony during APA's 2015 Annual Convention, Aug. 6–9, in Toronto.
This year's winners are:
- Brian A. Iwata, PhD, who won the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Application of Psychology, which recognizes a distinguished career and enduring contribution to advancing the application of psychology through methods, research and/or application of psychological techniques to important practical problems. Iwata was recognized for the "functional analysis" methods he pioneered, which offer an empirical approach for studying and treating behavior disorders.
- The late Sarnoff A. Mednick, PhD, who won the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology, which recognizes a distinguished career and enduring contribution to advancing psychological science. Mednick studied adoptees and their parents and demonstrated that crime has a genetic component. By studying children of women with schizophrenia, he also demonstrated that schizophrenia has biological origins, particularly in fetal development and brain structure.
- Walter E. Penk, PhD, who won the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Practice of Psychology, which recognizes a distinguished career and enduring contribution to advancing the professional practice of psychology through a demonstrable effect on patterns of service delivery in the profession. Penk's work at federal and state agencies, as well as in academic settings, has improved the functioning of many veterans, inspiring resiliency and post-traumatic growth.
- Derald Wing Sue, PhD, who won the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement by a Psychologist in the Public Interest, which recognizes a distinguished career and enduring contribution to the application of psychology in the public interest. Sue's work on racism, culture and social justice made him one of the most influential and effective contributors to multicultural psychology.
- Roger E. Kirk, PhD, who won the Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award, which recognizes a significant career contribution to the teaching of psychology. Kirk has taught statistics at Baylor University over the past 58 years, yet his impact reaches far beyond the university's classrooms. He authored the definitive book on experimental design, and his introductory statistics text has been used by hundreds of thousands of students worldwide.
