The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has named Nancy Adler, PhD, a professor of medical psychology and director of the Center for Health and Community at the University of California, San Francisco, to its division committee. The committee advises on IOM programs, assists in the oversight of its work and helps prioritize emerging issues.
Natacha Blain, JD, PhD, has been appointed director of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families at The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Prior to this post, she was associate director/acting executive director for Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families, where she developed and managed publications and programs. A former APA Congressional Fellow, Blain was also chief counsel to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on the Senate Judiciary Committee and an advisor for the Children's Defense Fund's Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education have named two psychologists among their 2015 state winners of the U.S. Professors of the Year award: Ganie B. Dehart, PhD, and Jennifer Peszka, PhD. Peszka is a professor of psychology at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, who conducts research on sleep and teaches statistics, behavioral neuroscience, and sensation and perception. Dehart is a distinguished teaching professor of psychology at the State University of New York Geneseo who teaches child development and cross-cultural psychology.
The University of Louisville has named Steven Maier, PhD, winner of the 2016 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology, a $100,000 no-strings-attached prize that honors creative work that is important to society. Maier is a distinguished professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado–Boulder, where he studies resilience. His research has shown that people who exert behavioral control over some aspect of an adverse event can recover more easily and are buffered against some of the harmful effects of any future trauma. Through laboratory research studies, he uncovered in animal subjects the neural mechanism that provides such resilience. His findings have been replicated in humans using neuroimaging. The College of Science at the University of Arizona has named Jeffrey N. Younggren, PhD, its 2015 Alumnus of the Year. Younggren earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Arizona. He has a private practice in clinical and forensic psychology and is a clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and at the University of Missouri. Younggren is a retired colonel in the Army Reserves and is a member of APA's Council of Representatives for Div. 42 (Psychologists in Independent Practice).
AAAS names eight psychology fellows
Eight psychologists have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science by the association's section on psychology.
They are recognized for their significant contributions in research; teaching; technology; services to professional societies; administration in academe, industry, and government; or communicating and interpreting science to the public.
The 2015 AAAS psychology fellows are:
- Rebecca D. Burwell, PhD, Brown University.
- Laurence Baker Leonard, PhD, Purdue University.
- David G. Myers, PhD, Hope College.
- Scott Plous, PhD, Wesleyan University.
- J. Edward Russo, PhD, Cornell University.
- Paula R. Skedsvold, PhD, Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
- Kiran K. Soma, PhD, University of British Columbia.
- Jeffrey M. Zacks, PhD, Washington University in St. Louis.