The Nicholas Hobbs Award has been awarded to Barbara Fiese. Fiese is the Pampered Chef Ltd. Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency and director of the Family Resiliency Center and professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fiese is a prolific scholar and recipient of numerous grants and awards. Fiese is known internationally for her research on the importance of family routines and mealtimes in the promotion of child well-being. Her work has contributed to important public policies concerning healthy child eating.
The Distinguished Contribution to Child Advocacy award has been awarded to William Beardslee. Beardslee directs the Baer Prevention Initiatives and is the chairman emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry at Boston Children's Hospital, and the Distinguished Gardner-Monks Professor of Child Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Beardslee's research has centered on the development of children at risk because of parental adversities such as mental illness or poverty. Beardslee is known internationally for his work on treatment of caregiver depression and mitigation of its effects on child development.
The APF/Division 37 Dianne J. Willis Early Career Award has been awarded to Amber Hewitt. Hewitt is the manager of policy and advocacy for the National Office of Policy and Prevention at Nemours Children’s Health System in Washington, D.C. and manages a health policy portfolio in which she focuses on child welfare, early childhood development, and social determinants of health. Hewitt’s research focuses on the impact of systemic racism on the well-being of African American youth. She was a science policy fellow for the National Institute of Mental Health as well as a legislative fellow for the Office of United States Sen. Cory A. Booker. In this role, she was the lead staffer who shepherded the introduction and passage of the bipartisan Sickle Cell Disease and Other Heritable Blood Disorders Research, Surveillance, Prevention, and Treatment Act of 2018.