2021 SRCD Biennial Awardees
Distinguished Contributions Awards
The SRCD Senior Awards Committee, chaired by Governing Council member Gustavo Carlo, selected four Distinguished Award recipients. The recipients of each of these prestigious awards are as follows:
Distinguished Contributions to the Interdisciplinary Understanding of Child Development Award
Patricia M. Greenfield, University of California, Los Angeles
For cutting-edge, integrative work across developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology, communication, ecology, economics, textiles, gender/ethnic/racial studies, education, linguistics, primate sciences, pediatrics, and neuroscience;
For exemplary impactful efforts to organize conferences, volumes, training programs, and research centers that foster interdisciplinary work.
Distinguished Contributions to Understanding International, Cultural, and Contextual Diversity in Child Development Award
Diane L. Hughes, New York University, Steinhardt
For leadership and pioneering contributions in family, parenting, and racial socialization research, including the influence of context (e.g., peers, schools, communities) on developmental patterns of diverse youth populations;
For foundational theoretical and empirical work on the central role of racial/ethnic socialization in child and youth development;
For scholarship that has inspired scholars and interventions to facilitate and promote aspects of racial/ethnic socialization in order to improve child and youth development.
Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development Award
Michael E. Lamb, University of Cambridge
For his pioneering studies of the role of the father in child development, early perinatal mother-newborn bonding, developmental significance of parent-child attachments, and culturally-comparative studies of parent-child relationships;
For his work on the consequences of alternative child-care arrangements for social and emotional development and his studies on children’s development in nontraditional families;
For his efforts to improve child custody standards and judicial procedures to ensure that children have meaningful, sustained relationships with each parent through the creation of post-divorce parenting plans.
Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award
Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, University of Wisconsin-Madison
For substantial, lasting, and broad-ranging contributions to psychology that has transformed our views on early emotional development, developmental psychopathology, moral development, socialization, and gender differences;
For innovation, creativity, rigor, and leadership in pioneering theoretical and methodological approaches to further our understanding of children’s social development;
For challenging prevailing early views that emphasized moral cognitions, that young children are egocentric and oblivious to other’s feelings and moral rules, and that empathy develops later in childhood.
Early Career Research Contributions Awards
Five scholars, selected by the SRCD Early Career Award Committee, chaired by Governing Council member Andrew Fuligni, will be recipients of this prestigious award, which is accompanied by an honorarium of $1,000 USD. The following five award recipients have strongly distinguished themselves as researchers and scholars, as evidenced through research, publications, and scholarly activities:
Riana Elyse Anderson, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
For her research and interventions for Black youth and their families in order to reduce racial stress and trauma while enhancing health coping and family functioning;
For her commitment to disseminating research and bringing national attention to racial justice matters for families of color.
Eddie Brummelman, University of Amsterdam
For his research on the origins and consequences of children’s self-views and their implications for family relationships and broader child development;
For his creativity and commitment to the public dissemination and understanding of the science of child development.
Daphna Buchsbaum, Brown University
For her research on the integration of internal learning capacities and external information in children’s learning;
For her unique combination of human and non-human primate research to address fundamental questions of cognition.
Caitlin Cavanagh, Michigan State University
For her research on the experiences and needs of youth involved in the juvenile justice system and their families;
For her engagement with the juvenile justice community, bringing evidence-based practices and a better awareness of adolescent development.
Steven O. Roberts, Stanford University
For his research on children’s emergent understanding of social groups, with particular implications for their conceptions and categorization of race;
For his contributions on the impact of racism within the scientific community and the broader society.
Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Awards
The SRCD Outstanding Dissertation Award Committee, chaired by Governing Council member Velma McBride Murry, selected four scholars for this prestigious award, which is accompanied by a $500 USD honorarium. Selection was based on criteria that included the quality of the dissertation, publications emerging from the project, and the nominee’s current position and engagement in the field of child development research:
Lorena Aceves, Office of Head Start, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
For examining the process by which cultural, familial, and individual level factors shape academic motivation among females of Mexican origin to inform polices and researcher-practitioner recommendations.
Josefina Bañales, University of Pittsburgh
For her dissertation on understanding how adolescents develop critical racial consciousness and engage in behaviors to challenge systems of oppression.
Fernanda L. Cross, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
For examining how the roles of sociocultural stressors, such as discrimination and documentation status, influence parental ethnic-racial socialization practices in Latinx immigrant families.
Brie M. Reid, Brown University
For studying the longitudinal pathways through which early life exposure to nutritional deficits of children leads to inflammation, which in turn increases risk for depression, as children transition into adolescence and young adulthood.