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April 24, 2020

Faculty/staff honors: Education research, Salish Sea Prize, Association for Psychological Science award

Recent honors to University of Washington faculty and staff have come from the American Education Research Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the SeaDoc Society.

Andrew Meltzoff honored by the Association for Psychological Science

Andrew Meltzoff, UW professor of psychology and co-director of the UW-based Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, has been recognized by the Association for Psychological Science with a William James Fellow Award for 2020.

Meltzoff was one of four this year to receive the award, which is given to members of the association, or APS, to honor “their lifetime of significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology.”

The association praised Meltzoff, saying his “landmark studies in infant development helped reconfigure our understanding of preverbal cognition.

“Meltzoff demonstrated imitation in early infancy and proposed it as a powerful social learning mechanism by which infants begin to acquire the behaviors, skills, and norms of their culture. Through a set of classic studies, Meltzoff made key discoveries concerning the nature and functions of imitation in childhood.”

Meltzoff is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair in psychology. Other recipients of the award this year are from Stanford University, University College London and the University of Michigan.

The award, the highest the association gives for contributions to the science of psychology, is named for American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910).

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Washington Sea Grant’s Crab Team wins SeaDoc Society’s 2020 Salish Sea Award

The Washington Sea Grant Crab Team‘s detection and study of the dangerously invasive European green crab has brought it the 2020 Salish Sea Prize from the University of California, Davis-based SeaDoc Society.

The society, a program of the UC Davis Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, awards its Salish Sea Science Prize every two years to recognize scientists “whose work results in the improved health of fish and wildlife populations in the Salish Sea.” The award was announced on Earth Day, April 22.

The European green crab is an invasive species affecting ecosystems worldwide, damaging shellfish harvests and other native species and habitats. In the Pacific Northwest, it could harm Dungeness crab populations and eelgrass habitats.

Thanks to the WSG Crab Team, “major scientifically based efforts are being made to stop its spread before it starts,” the SeaDoc Society wrote. The Salish Sea Prize comes with a no-strings $2,000 cash award.

The WSG Crab Team, which is housed in the UW College of Environment and supported through the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife, created a volunteer-based early detection and monitoring program for the European green crab that includes a map of “at-risk” sites, allowing prioritized monitoring of susceptible estuaries and lagoons. The team also provides technical expertise to government and tribal resource managers and information to the public.

Jeff Adams is project lead for the team and Emily Grason is program manager. P. Sean MacDonald, a College of Environment faculty member, is co-principal investigator and Kate Litle is assistant director for programs at Washington Sea Grant.

Grason called the European green crab “probably the most notorious and damaging marine invasive on the planet.”

She added: “It’s unfortunately not just on our doorstep here in the Salish Sea, but it’s wandered into our foyer as well. Our goal is to keep it from overstaying its welcome.”

Read more on the SeaDoc Society website. For more information, contact Grason at egrason@uw.edu

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National honors for College of Education researchers

Several faculty and students with the UW College of Education have received honors for 2020 from the American Educational Research Association.

Shaneé Washington, assistant professor, received Outstanding Dissertation awards in two categories and honorable mention in a third for her 2019 dissertation, “Family-School-Community (Dis)Engagement: An Indigenous Community’s Fight for Educational Equity and Cultural Reclamation in a New England School District.” Listen to a podcast with Washington.

Assistant professor Emily Machado, who studies teaching and learning writing in diverse classroom contexts, received an Early Career Award in the language and social processes category. Listen to a podcast with Machado discussing her work.

Associate professor Jennifer Hoffman, a researcher with the Center for Leadership in Athletics, received an Outstanding Contribution to the Field Award in the category of education and sport. Hoffman wrote the recent book “College Sports and Institutional Values in Competition.”

Other awards included an Out-of-School Time Emerging Scholar award for doctoral student Ishmael Miller; and Miller and fellow doctoral student Alyson Honsa being accepted into the David L. Clark National Graduate Student Research Seminar in Education Administration & Policy, co-sponsored by the association.

The association, called the AERA for short, canceled its April annual meeting, for the first time since World War II, due to the pandemic.

Read more about the honors and recipients on the college website.

Tag(s): Alyson Honsa • Andrew Meltzoff • College of Arts & Sciences • College of Education • College of the Environment • Department of Psychology • Emily Grason • Emily Machado • Ishmael Miller • Jeff Adams • Jennifer Hoffman • Shaneé Washington • Washington Sea Grant • Washington Sea Grant Crab Team

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