News

Nicole Perry, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, has been named the winner of the 2022 Victoria S. Levin Award. 

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), the nation's leading interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging, has named Bill Chopik among the outstanding award winners for the year, in recognition of his research on gratitude, aging and whether cultural experiences come into play.

The Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award was awarded to Chopik for the article, "Grateful expectations: Cultural differences in the curvilinear association between age and gratitude." The award recognized insightful and innovative publications on aging and life course development in the behavioral and social sciences.

Two early-career faculty members in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences have been named Rising Stars by the Association for Psychological Science, one of the top honors in the field.

The recognition was awarded to Hannah Williamson and Elizabeth Muñoz, both assistant professors of human development and family sciences at UT Austin. Each year, only a handful of scholars worldwide — people making extensive impact in psychology early in their careers — get chosen to be APS Rising Stars.

Aprile Benner, associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, has received the Mid-Career Award for Research Excellence from the Society for Research on Adolescence.

Benner's research focuses on low-income youth and young people from racial and ethnic minority groups, investigating how social contexts influence experiences of marginalization and discrimination, school transitions, and developmental outcomes during adolescence.

Elizabeth Gershoff, professor of human development and family sciences in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Texas at Austin, has been named the winner of a national award recognizing the outstanding work of psychologists in the field of child advocacy and policy.

A long-time researcher of the impact of spanking and corporal punishment on children, Gershoff received the 2019 Nicholas Hobbs Award from the American Psychological Association's Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice. The award, given at the APA's conference in Chicago this month, recognizes psychologists who are dedicated to advocacy and policy that affect the lives of children.

Heather Leidy, associate professor of nutritional sciences, will be among 20 scientific experts who will draft dietary guidelines for the United States.

Leidy, who recently joined the faculty of the Nutritional Sciences Department at The University of Texas at Austin, was named this week to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Twenty nationally recognized scientists will serve on the committee.

Professor and chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences Stephen Russell has received the prestigious Distinguished Book Award from Division 44—the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues.