UCLA’s Sandra Graham Honored With Association for Psychological Science Lifetime Achievement Award

Sandra Graham, Distinguished Professor and Presidential Chair in Education and Diversity at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, has been named a recipient of the Association for Psychological Science Lifetime Achievement Award.

 “The Association for Psychological Science is honored to recognize and celebrate the significant scientific achievements of the world’s leading psychological scientists,” said APS Chief Executive Officer Robert Gropp. “Our 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients have made important and transformative contributions to research and mentoring. Their scholarship has contributed greatly to science and human well-being more generally.”

Graham joins a group of 13  psychological scientists honored for contributions that have advanced understanding of topics ranging from anxiety and fear to team effectiveness. The lifetime achievement awards are the association’s highest honors, and their recipients represent the field’s most accomplished and respected scientists. Graham was honored with the 2023 APS James S. Jackson Lifetime Achievement Award for Transformative Scholarship recognizing a lifetime of outstanding psychological research that advances understanding of historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups and/or the psychological and societal benefits of racial/ethnic diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

“I think this award is less about me than about the recognition by psychological science of the importance of thinking about racial and ethnic diversity in any context as fluid, dynamic, and changing across time and space,” Graham said. “That understanding opens up transformative opportunities for research and intervention in school contexts.”

As a scholar Graham has made major contributions to the studies of motivation, aggression, bullying and peer victimization, ethnic diversity, and intergroup relations, with a focus on children of color. She has also contributed to important interventions and policy reforms affecting youth, including advising on school zero-tolerance policies, violent video games, and juvenile justice. She started her research career by examining the social context of attributions in the classroom. Her innovative experimental research helped pave the way to large-scale motivational interventions that are in use today. Graham has also focused on the connection between academic and behavioral problems, including aggression, peer victimization, and self-blame. As a teacher and mentor, she has inspired many psychology students and a remarkable number of notable Black women scholars.  

“Sandra has made invaluable contributions to the field and her work on race and diversity has illuminated the importance and benefit of addressing the needs of students of color in our schools and communities,” said Christina Christie, Wasserman Dean of the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies.  “Her career at UCLA is an inspiration to us all and this award is richly deserved.”

Graham, who was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2015, is a Principal Investigator on grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and has published widely in developmental, social, and educational psychology journals. She is a 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award from the Society for Research on Child Development and the 2014 E. L. Thorndike Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Educational Psychology, Division 15 of the American Psychological Association. 

Michelle Craske,  a professor of psychology and of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA has also named a recipient of the 2023 APS  Lifetime Achievement  Awards.

More information and a complete listing of the 2023 Association for Psychological  Science Lifetime Achievement Awards is available here