2016 APA Div. 5 award winners

Anne Anastasi Dissertation Award

The 2016 winner of the Anne Anastasi Dissertation Award, sponsored by the Anne Anastasi Charitable Foundation in honor of Anne Anastasi, PhD, is Mariola Moeyaert, PhD. Moeyaert joined the faculty of educational psychology and methodology at the State University of New York (University at Albany) in fall 2015. She received her PhD from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Advanced Study in Education at the City University of New York. Her major research interests and publications are in the field of multilevel analysis, meta-analysis and single-case experimental data. She is also interested in Bayesian statistics, bootstrapping, structural equation modeling, longitudinal data analysis and international comparative research. She has authored or coauthored about 20 publications, in such journals as  Psychological Methods ,  Multivariate Behavior Research ,  Journal of School Psychology ,  Behavior Research Methods  and School Psychology Quarterly , reporting about developments in research methodology (including several extensive simulation studies) and about applications of statistical models on educational data. She has reviewed for the journals  Behavior Research Methods, Behavior Modification and Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science . Currently, she is involved as Co-PI in a research project, funded by the  Institute of Educational Sciences ,  titled “Multilevel Modeling of Single-subject Experimental Data: Handling Data and Design Complexities.”

Distinguished Dissertation in Qualitative Inquiry Award

The 2016 winner of the Distinguished Dissertation in Qualitative Inquiry Award is Dennis C. Wendt, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine (NIAAA training grant). Wendt is doing research with the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute. He recently completed his PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Michigan and his clinical internship at the Southwest Consortium (VA/Indian Health Service) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His primary research interests pertain to evidence-based treatment of substance-use disorder, with a focus on group therapy and American Indian/Alaska Native populations. His dissertation was a mixed-methods project in which he explored the variety of ways in which clinicians integrate, implement or draw upon evidence-based practice protocols for group therapy with substance-use disorder. Other research interests include cultural and community psychology, research methods and theoretical psychology. His research has been published in  American Psychologist,  The Counseling Psychologist,  Review of General Psychology,  Health and Place, and  Transcultural Psychiatry. He graduated as department valedictorian with a BS in psychology (minor in philosophy) from Brigham Young University.

Anne Anastasi Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award

The 2016 winner of the Anne Anastasi Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award , sponsored by the College Board and the Fordham University Graduate School of Education, is Leslie Rutkowski, PhD. Rutkowski joined the University of Oslo in September 2015 as professor of educational measurement in the Centre for Educational Measurement. Prior to her current appointment, she was an assistant professor of inquiry methodology at Indiana University. In 2007, she earned her PhD in educational psychology with a specialization in statistics and educational measurement from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, under the direction of Carolyn Anderson, PhD. Directly following her PhD, Rutkowski was appointed as a research associate for the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Her experience with the IEA inspired her work in the field of international large-scale assessment, where her research emphasizes methodological and applied perspectives. Her interests include the impact of background questionnaire quality on achievement results, latent variable models for achievement estimation and examining methods for comparing heterogeneous populations in international surveys. In addition to a number of peer-reviewed papers in applied measurement journals, Rutkowski recently published the edited volume “ Handbook of International Large-Scale Assessment” (Rutkowski, von Davier, & Rutkowski, 2014) with Chapman & Hall. She was also recently awarded a four-year Research Council of Norway FINNUT grant to investigate and develop methods that directly account for population heterogeneity in international surveys and assessments. In addition to learning Norwegian and mastering the fine art of choosing the correct cross-country ski wax, Rutkowski enjoys running and home-brewing during the long Norwegian winters.

Jacob Cohen Distinguished Contributions to Teaching and Mentoring Award

The Jacob Cohen Distinguished Contributions to Teaching and Mentoring Award is sponsored by the Taylor and Francis Group in memory of Jacob Cohen, PhD. The 2016 winner of this award is Patrick Curran, PhD, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He also serves as the director of the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory that houses the UNC doctoral program in quantitative psychology. His program of research and teaching is centered on the development, evaluation and application of quantitative methods in the social and behavioral sciences. His current quantitative research is focused on the measurement and analysis of longitudinal data from both a structural equations and multilevel modeling perspective. His substantive research is focused on developmental psychopathology with an emphasis on risk and protective factors in adolescent substance use. Curran draws on his experiences from the intersection of his research in quantitative methods and developmental psychopathology to inform his program of teaching. He strives to balance teaching the core structure of the statistical models along with the application and interpretation of models fitted to real data. He teaches extensively at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and he has won the UNC Chapman Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate education. He also collaborates with his friend Dan J. Bauer, PhD, in the provision of summer workshops covering a variety of topics in quantitative methods. Most importantly, Curran has twin 11-year-old daughters who are much more fun than statistics.

Distinguished Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award

The 2016 winner of the Distinguished Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award is Amedeo Giorgi, PhD, professor emeritus, Saybrook University, San Francisco. Although Giorgi originally enrolled in college as an English major, he switched to psychology in his sophomore year after reading James' “The Principle of Psychology , ” being particularly fascinated with two chapters: “The Stream of Thought” and “The Consciousness of Self.” Giorgi considers it somewhat ironic that he proceeded from a bachelor's to a PhD degree without ever encountering the phenomenon of consciousness, except when his own efforts led him to the topic. His initial research at Fordham University followed a strict experimental, psychophysical program pertinent to the field of vision. Following work as a human factors expert for a consulting firm, Giorgi began his academic career at Manhattan College, where he learned of the work of Adrian van Kaam, a Dutch émigré, who was teaching at Duquesne University. Following a meeting with van Kaam, Giorgi was advised that European psychology was being highly influenced by phenomenology, a philosophy that thematized consciousness. As that was his original motive for majoring in psychology, Giorgi decided to learn everything about phenomenology to apply its insights to psychology. In September 1962, he joined the graduate faculty at Duquesne University working on the integration of phenomenological philosophy and psychological subject matter, especially for research purposes. For the next 25 years, Giorgi sat in on phenomenological philosophy classes and kept applying what he learned to issues surrounding psychological research. In September 1986, he joined the faculty of Saybrook University where he continued to develop his phenomenological approach to psychology until retirement 26 years later.