Dr. Sheldon Cohen
Carnegie Mellon University
Senior Award Winner

Sheldon Cohen is the 2008 recipient of the Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology (Senior) Award. Sheldon is particularly worthy of this award. For over 30 years, he has helped us to understand the roles of social and psychological factors in health and well-being. This includes work on psychological stress, social networks, positive and negative affect, personality and social economic status. Much of Sheldon's work has focused on how these psychosocial factors influence immunity, particularly susceptibility to infection, but also their influence on the onset and progression of asthma, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Along the way, Sheldon has published numerous theoretical and empirical papers. His work has appeared in the best psychological journals but also in the elite medical journals. He has also produced a handful of seminal review papers on topics such as stress and disease, social support, depression and immunity, and positive affect and health. Taken in their entirety, Sheldon's papers have been cited over 14,000 times. He has been elected to the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, and has received lifetime distinguished contribution awards from the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the American Psychosomatic Society. Earlier in his career he received the "Junior" Award for Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology from Division 38. That earlier award was in recognition of the early contributions that he made to the field of health psychology. The present award reflects that contributions that he has made across his lifetime. Both awards are warranted and well-deserved.

Dr. Julienne Bower
UCLA
Junior Award Winner

This year's recipient of the Division 38 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology ("Junior" Award) is Dr. Julienne Bower. Professor Bower completed her B.A. at Brown University in 1988 and her Ph.D. at UCLA in 1998. She completed her clinical internship at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital. From 1998 through 2001, Dr. Bower was a postdoctoral fellow in the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, then an Assistant Research Psychologist in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Research within the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. From 2001 through 2006, Dr. Bower held an Assistant Professor-in-Residence position in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences with a primary appointment in the Cousins Center. In 2006, Dr. Bower joined the UCLA Department of Psychology as Assistant Professor.

Dr. Bower develops and tests conceptual models of the interrelationships among psychological and behavioral parameters, biological factors, and disease, including specific pathways from psychological responses through to the biological processes that influence disease and health outcomes. Dr. Bower has more than 40 publications, many appearing in top journals in psychology, health psychology, and medicine.

Dr. Julie Bower is a highly creative scientist in health psychology who is working on vital questions involving reciprocal relations of psychological parameters, biological processes, and health outcomes. Moreover, Professor Bower is a talented teacher and mentor and a valued academic colleague. We are delighted to confer this award on behalf of Division 38.

Scott Meit, Psy.D., M.B.A.
Vice Chair for the Department of
Psychiatry and Psychology at Cleveland Clinic.
Timothy B. Jeffrey Memorial Award

The Timothy B. Jeffrey Memorial Award of $3000 is given by Division 38 in conjunction with the American Psychological Foundation. It recognizes the work of these full time providers of face to face patient services, in individual or group settings.

Dr. Meit has held the position of Professor of Family Medicine with the West Virginia University School of Medicine and most recently served as head psychologist at the world renowned Cleveland Clinic. A 1989 graduate of Florida Tech's PsyD program, he has just recently assumed the position of Chief Psychologist and Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry, with Summa Health System (Akron, OH). As shared, his clinical practice focuses upon integrated behavioral health/primary care medicine, with specific interests in Geropsychology. He is a former two-term member of the APA Council of Representatives and currently serves as a commissioner to APA's Commission for the Recognition of Specialties and Proficiencies in Professional Psychology. In fact, convention scheduling being what it is Scott is, at this very moment, part of a CRSPPP sponsored panel on "Ethics and Specialization" over at the convention center.

Perry M. Nicassio, Ph.D.
UCLA
Nathan Perry Career Service to Health Psychology Award

Perry Nicassio is a distinguished clinical health psychologist with many achievements in research, teaching, and academic administration. Currently he is a Clinical Professor and Senior Research Scientist at the Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA. He is also an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Psychology at UCLA. Going back nearly 40 years, Perry Nicassio received his BA in psychology from the University of Southern California in 1969 and his Masters (1971) and Ph.D. (1973) in clinical psychology from Northwestern University. In the early to mid 1980s Perry was an assistant professor of psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1987 he moved backed to California and was appointed as associate clinical professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and served as the founding director of the Health Psychology Ph.D. Program at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego.

His research interests have focused on the development and implementation of behavioral interventions for patients with chronic illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, insomnia, and fibromyalgia. Perry has also conducted research on the role of illness cognition and coping processes in patients with arthritic conditions. Currently, he is the principal investigator of an NIH-funded clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of behavior therapy on indices of disease activity, health functioning, and inflammation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. He also is the co-investigator of other NIH grants that address the efficacy of behavioral interventions for fibromyalgia and insomnia in older adults. His numerous scientific publications and paper presentations in health psychology and behavioral medicine include Managing Chronic Illness: A Biopsychosocial Perspective (APA, 1995) which he edited along with Tim Smith.

The Career Service Award Perry Nicassio was instituted back in 1998 and was later renamed in honor of the late Nate Perry, a founding member and champion of health psychology for three decades. The award is reserved for those whose professional accomplishments exemplify the vision and commitment of its namesake. Who better to receive the Perry Award than PERRY Nicassio? The Division's Awards Committee agreed with this by making him their unanimous choice. We thank Perry Nicassio for all of his years of distinguished service to Division 38 and to the field of health psychology.