Dante Cicchetti, professor of psychology, psychiatry, and pediatrics at the University of Rochester, will receive two awards at the 107th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Boston later this month.
Cicchetti's work with and research about children have earned him the Nicholas Hobbs Award, which honors a psychologist who exemplifies high ideals and devotion to child advocacy. The award will be given by the APA's Division of Children, Youth, and Family Services on Aug. 21, and a dinner in his honor will follow. Previous winners of the Nicholas Hobbs Award include Edward Zigler, who is credited with being "the father of Head Start."
The Rochester psychologist will also receive the association's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Clinical Child Psychology. In announcing that award, the selection committee on clinical child psychology cited Cicchetti's theoretical contributions to the field as well as his research on attachment, child maltreatment, and maternal depression.
Cicchetti is the director of Mt. Hope Family Center in Rochester. The center conducts research and provides intervention and treatment toward promoting mental health in children, preventing child maltreatment, and fostering positive relationships between parents and their children. Mt. Hope Family Center is affiliated with the University of Rochester's Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology. The center has also sponsored a series of symposia, which were cited as "setting standards in the field" by the APA selection committee.
Cicchetti is founder and editor of Development and Psychopathology, a scholarly journal that was recently ranked second with regard to impact in its field by Journal Citation Reports. He also co-edited Developmental Psychopathology with Donald Cohen of Harvard University, which has become the standard reference manual in the field of developmental psychopathology.
The American Psychological Association is the premier organization of psychologists in the United States.