Lang wins Lifetime Career Award

LangPeter J. Lang to receive the award from the International Union of Psychological Science at meetings in
Yokohama, Japan

Clinical and Health Psychology celebrates another much deserved accolade for faculty member Peter J. Lang. The

International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS) will award him their Lifetime Career Award at their 31st International Congress of Psychology in Yokohama, Japan (July 24-29, 2016). As noted in Dr. Lang’s award letter, ” The Lifetime Career Award is part of an IUPsyS initiative to acknowledge the achievements of psychologists and is given in recognition of distinguished and enduring lifetime contributions to international cooperation and the advancement of knowledge in the field of psychological science.” Dr. Lang is only the second recipient of the award. The first Lifetime Career Award was made in 2012, when it was awarded to Albert Bandura.

Dr. Lang, a Graduate Research Professor and director of the NIMH Center for the Study of Emotion & Attention (CSEA). CSEA is a facility for the scientific study of human emotion, highlighting emotion’s foundation on survival circuits in the mammalian brain, and its motivational significance for attentional engagement and response mobilization. Importantly, the Center’s research program includes an emphasis on translational studies, applying its basic science findings and methods to a search for biological markers of emotional dysfunction, to improve and illuminate the diathesis of anxiety/mood disorders.

Dr. Lang’s work and contributions to both advancement of the field, and mentorship, have been lauded in many previous awards, including the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (1980), the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychophysiology from the Society for Psychophysiological Research (1990), the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association (1993), and multiple honorary doctoral degrees from institutions including the University of Tübingen, 1978 (Germany), Uppsala University, 1975 (Sweden), University of Granada, 2007 (Spain), University Jaumé 1, 2008 (Spain).

Details of the IUPsyS global mission and scope can be found at their website (http://www.iupsys.net/home/index.html) With 82 country members and 20 affiliated organizations the IUPsyS represents over a million psychologists worldwide.  The 1st International Congress of Psychology was held on the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution in Paris, France in August 1889; congresses are held every four years.