The National Academy of Sciences has presented $75,000 Troland Research Awards to both Adriana Galván, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Thomas Griffiths, PhD, of Princeton University. The awards recognize unusual achievement by young investigators in experimental psychology. Galván’s research focuses on how adolescent brain development influences behavior and decision-making. Griffiths’s research combines behavioral and computer science to explore human cognition and machine learning.
Arizona State University’s Graduate College Mentoring Network has presented its Outstanding Doctoral Mentor Award to psychology professor Linda Luecken, PhD, for her work in ensuring that graduate and undergraduate students in her lab gain valuable research experience. The lab focuses on how sociocultural and biological factors impact children’s mental and physical health. Luecken’s students and mentees say she has a keen talent for knowing when to guide them and when to encourage their independence.
Lori Pbert, PhD, has been appointed to a four-year term on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which works to improve Americans’ health by making evidence-based recommendations about preventive screenings, counseling services and medications. Pbert is a professor in the department of population and quantitative health sciences, associate chief of the division of preventive and behavioral medicine, and director of the Center for Tobacco Treatment Research and Training at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her work focuses on tobacco use and obesity prevention and treatment, with a focus on youth and families.
APA has named Katherine B. McGuire as its first chief advocacy officer, responsible for implementing a unified, strategic vision for the association’s government relations efforts and coordinating its advocacy initiatives in nongovernmental sectors. McGuire has more than 25 years of senior-level policy experience in Congress, the executive branch and the private sector. She served almost 18 years in the U.S. Senate in senior leadership roles, including as the Republican staff director of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and five years as a U.S. House of Representatives chief of staff. McGuire also led global advocacy efforts for the trade group Business Software Alliance, where she represented the world’s largest software companies before both U.S. and foreign governments.
The University of Minnesota’s psychology department has presented a Distinguished Alumni Award to Scott Plous, PhD, for his contributions to basic and applied research in psychology. Plous, who graduated from the school in 1980 with a bachelor’s in psychology, is now a professor of psychology at Wesleyan University who conducts research on decision-making, prejudice and discrimination. He is also the founder of the Social Psychology Network, a National Science Foundation-supported website dedicated to psychological research and teaching.
The Office of International Programs at the University of Kansas has presented the George and Eleanor Woodyard International Educator Award to Glenn Adams, PhD, for his work promoting international education at the university. Adams teaches and conducts research on cultural psychology, mentors international students and helped found an annual graduate workshop for the Kansas African Studies Center that supports doctoral students who are working on their dissertations.