2021 APA Distinguished Scientific Awards

The American Psychological Association is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2021 APA Distinguished Scientific Awards.

These awards, which are among the highest honors for scientific achievement by psychologists, are made in three categories:

The Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions recognizes senior scientists for distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology. This award, which was first made in 1956, is typically given to three scientists (or pairs of collaborating scientists) each year.

The Award for Distinguished Scientific Applications of Psychology recognizes psychologists who have made distinguished theoretical or empirical advances in psychology leading to the understanding or amelioration of important practical problems. This award, which was first made in 1973, is typically given to one scientist each year.

The Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology recognizes excellent psychologists who are at early stages of their research careers (up to 10 years after receiving their doctorates). The award, which was first made in 1974, is currently given to scientists in five specific research areas each year. A total of ten research areas are considered, with each area covered in alternating years.

The Committee on Scientific Awards, which is overseen by the APA Board of Scientific Affairs and staffed by the APA Science Directorate, selects the recipients of these awards on the basis of nominations submitted by a wide range of scientists and institutions. Reviewers with expertise in particular areas of research provide further advice to the committee.

Further information about the recipients' backgrounds and research will appear in the December awards issue of American Psychologist^®.

Lisa Feldman Barrett
Northeastern University

Citation:
For her groundbreaking contributions to affective science. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s conceptual act theory of emotion has challenged prevailing views of emotions as basic and universal and has created much- needed dialogue and innovation. In her work, she models a creative approach to doing psychology that freely ranges over the full breadth of the field, drawing insights from philosophy, biology, anthropology, linguistics, law, and beyond. Her work employs a wide variety of behavioral and brain measures, and she has been a driving force in methodological innovation.

Megan R. Gunnar
University of Minnesota

Citation:
For her seminal contributions to elucidating the associations between stress response systems and human behavioral development; for linking these associations to our understanding of how early caregiver experiences moderate stress physiology and facilitate coping in young children; for translating our knowledge about early biopsychosocial development to inform child care policies pertinent to children and adolescents; and for making substantive theoretical contributions to developmental science. Megan R. Gunnar has ushered new ways of thinking about stress to the field of psychology as well as provided strong and generous scientific leadership, leaving a lasting and inspiring impact on psychological science.

Henry L. Roediger III
Washington University in St. Louis

Citation:
For outstanding contributions to understanding human memory and cognition, and his leadership in advancing experimental psychology. Through careful experimentation and scholarship, Henry L. Roediger has consistently identified and driven major areas of research that have important theoretical implications and inform our understanding of the human condition. He elucidated the surprising fallibility of human memory, revealed powerful implicit influences on memory, and showed that memory tests do more than evaluate—they facilitate future retrieval.

James H. Sidanius
Harvard University

Citation:
For profound contributions to social, personality, and political psychology. Crossing levels of analysis from social science to evolutionary biology, James H. Sidanius’s work is exemplary on theoretical, methodological, and empirical grounds and is widely regarded for its societal significance. He used sophisticated statistical techniques to analyze the cognitive-motivational basis of political ideology and the role of racial resentment in public opinion. He was an early advocate and practitioner of collecting data from different societies and cultures. The development of social dominance theory represents a milestone in the scientific understanding of intergroup dynamics, social hierarchy, and the psychology of oppression. His work was often provocative and controversial, and he played a key role in important debates concerning racism, sexism, and world politics.

Brian A. Anderson (Perception, Motor Performance)
Texas A&M University

Citation:
For his outstanding and pioneering work on the role of learning in automatic attentional biases. Brian A. Anderson’s development of methodologies to study attentional capture by stimuli associated with reward gave rise to the popular idea of an overarching learning-dependent mechanism of attentional control referred to as “selection history.” His programmatic and prolific exploration of these phenomena using both behavioral and neuroscientific methods has revealed multiple independent learning mechanisms influencing attentional control. A tireless, creative and dedicated researcher, his work has important translational implications for behavioral health and our understanding of addiction.

Molly J. Crockett (Social Psychology)
Yale University

Citation:
For distinguished contributions to the psychology of human morality; for exquisite experiments that shed light on the social, cognitive, and neuroscientific processes leading people to decide whether to help or harm, to punish or extend grace, to trust or to condemn. Through the deployment of a vast and impressive methodological toolkit, Molly J. Crockett’s work has unearthed basic principles of both moral cognition and behavior, in the lab and the world, that ultimately will inform interventions to increase our prosocial tendencies and reduce our more damning ones.

Corinne A. Moss-Racusin (Social Psychology)
Skidmore College

Citation:
For her outstanding contributions to social psychology including investigations of backlash against gender vanguards, which have led to successful interventions that defeat stereotypes and prejudice. Corinne A. Moss-Racusin’s work helps society to overcome biases that contribute to gender segregation in the workforce, thereby liberating people to perform the work they are most passionate about without being held to double standards or expectations regarding what they ‘’ught to be.’’ As a testament to her interdisciplinary approach, her research has appeared in leading scientific journals, including Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been widely communicated through prestigious news outlets.   

Dobromir Rahnev (Behavioral/Cognitive Neuroscience)
Georgia Institute of Technology

Citation:
For outstanding contributions to the fields of perceptual decision making and visual metacognition. Dobromir Rahnev’s work has revealed the determinants of subjective evaluation in perceptual tasks, the sources of metacognitive inefficiency, and the neural implementation of the control of perceptual decision making in the prefrontal cortex. Rahnev’s research on the suboptimality of perception is beginning to shift the role of optimality in the field. He creatively combines computational modeling, functional neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and psychophysics, while his dedication to the principles of open science has resulted in the creation of large repositories of open data such as the Confidence Database.

Daisy R. Singla (Applied Psychology)
University of Toronto

Citation:
For innovative research in the area of global mental health with an emphasis on improving access to evidence-based psychological therapies to historically underserved populations. Daisy R. Singla has emerged as a leader in the strategy of task-sharing of interventions to non-specialist providers, and her work spans the design of culturally adapted interventions, the assessment of competencies, and the implementation of measurement-based peer supervision, in the context of large pragmatic clinical trials in real-world settings in three continents. Her work also incorporates rigorous tests of moderation and mediation in the process of reducing inequities in access to evidence-based mental health care.

Laura B. Zahodne (Individual Differences)
University of Michigan

Citation:
For her seminal contributions to the understanding of individual differences in cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in relation to racial and ethnic inequalities. Laura B. Zahodne’s work has provided foundational knowledge concerning the environmental factors that underlie persistent racial disparities in late-life cognition. Specifically, she showed that social stress (e.g., discrimination) independently contributes to cognitive inequalities. Moreover, she identified variables that protect against cognitive aging, including education and social support; thus, her work identifies potential targets for intervention. Through her rigorous and innovative research, she is addressing issues that are among the most critical facing society.