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HomePast Award Recipients
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Karen Saywitz Early Career Award for Outstanding Contributions to Research / Practice in the Field of Child Maltreatment

 

2023

Monica Lawson, PhD
Angela Narayan, PhD



2022

Deborah Goldfarb, PhD


2021

Sue Hobbs, PhD

 

2020

Karen Saywitz Early Career Award: Susan Yoon, PhD

Outstanding Contributions to Research and Practice: Charissa Pizarro, PsyD

 

2019

Elizabeth Handley, PhD

 

2017 

Apryl Alexander, PsyD

 

2016 

Natacha Godbout, PhD

 

2015

Angelique Day, PhD

 

2014

Kristin Valentino, PhD

 

2013

Kathryn Howell, PhD

 

2012

Karen Appleyard Carmody, PhD, LCSW

Carmody is a licensed psychologist and clinical associate at the Center for Child and Family Health (CCFH) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center. Carmody received her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Minnesota. Her post-doctoral training was completed at the University of North Carolina's Center for Developmental Science. Carmody is engaged in several program evaluation and dissemination projects for evidence-based practices for children who have experienced trauma and early adversity. She is working with Mary Dozier, PhD, and a team at CCFH to develop the nation's first Learning Collaborative focused on the dissemination of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC). She serves as the evaluator for the PCIT of the Carolinas project, the nation's first Learning Collaborative for Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Carmody also serves as a clinical supervisor for the Healthy Families Durham home visiting and child maltreatment prevention program and program manager for the Durham Early Head Start Home-Based Program. Carmody also has significant experience providing trauma treatment to children and families. She serves as a clinician and the former co-director of the North Carolina Child Response Initiative, a police-mental health partnership designed to provide crisis intervention and support to children and families who have witnessed domestic and community violence. Carmody's research focuses on the correlates and consequences of attachment and parenting, developmental processes underlying resilience following early adversity, and empirically-based interventions relating to trauma and attachment. Her research is grounded in a developmental psychopathology perspective and in her clinical interests in the outcomes of early adversity, with the goal of advancing interventions with high-risk children.

 

2011

Staci Perlman, PhD

Perlman is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at Kutztown University. She obtained her doctoral degree in Social Welfare from the School of Soial Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also received her MSW. Her practice and research interests are focused on promoting the well-being of vulnerable young children. She has worked as a preschool teacher and as a direct practitioner providing support to children identified with significant behavioral problems and their families. Perlman's research has focused on using partnership-based research to facilitate collaboration across systems serving vulnerable young children and their families. Her prior research involved using an integrated administrative data system to examine the prevalence, timing, and influence of early experiences of child maltreatment and homelessness on early educational well-being. Her current research is focused on examining the timing trajectories of first experiences of homelessness, child maltreatment, and foster care relative to one another; and making meaningful distinctions between substantiated and unsubstantiated allegations of child maltreatment. She is serving as an external evaluator of several. Currently, she is also the co-chair of the Task Force on Child Maltreatment and Homelessness.

 

2010

Margaret Stevenson, PhD

Stevenson is an assistant professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Evansville. Previously she was the recipient of the Section's Dissertation Award and then won the First Place Dissertation Award from Div. 41 (American Psychology-Law Society). Stevenson was recently published in the prestigious Psychology, Public Policy and Law. Stevenson has already made 27 conference presentations, and has published four published chapters (comprehensive reviews that are drawing attention in the field), an encyclopedia article, one law review article, and five peer-reviewed journal articles. Both of the psychologists who nominated her endorsed Stevenson as one of the most outstanding young psychologists to enter the child maltreatment field that they have known.

 

2005

Kimberly Mitchell, PhD

Mitchell is a research assistant professor of psychology and the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center

 

2004

Michael de Arellano, Medical University of South Carolina

 

2003

Elissa J. Brown, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the New York University Child Study Center

 

2002

Kristin Kenefick of the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center

 

Mid-Career Award for Outstanding Work in Child Maltreatment

2023

Cynthia Nadjowski, PhD

 

2022

Annika Melinder, PhD


2021

Jenelle Shanley, PhD

 

The Section on Child Maltreatment Dissertation Award

2023

Jorge Cuartas, Harvard Graduate School of Education and Universidad de los Andes, "Piloting a Universal Parenting Violence Prevention Program for Families with Young Children in Colombia (Apapacho)" 

 

2022

Camie Tomlinson, MSW, Virginia Commonwealth University, "Comparing Theoretical Models of Childhood Adversity to Understand Psychological Adjustment of Child Welfare-Involved Adolescents"

 

2021

Karissa DiMarzio, Florida International University, “A Dimensional Approach to Understanding Emotional Neglect and its Impact on Children's Psychosocial Development: A Mixed Methods Study”

 

2020

Caitlyn Owens, North Carolina State University, “Promoting Positive Future Expectations in Maltreated Adolescents: A Closer Examination of the Role of Parent-youth Relationships and School Engagement”

 

2019

Justin Harty, University of Chicago, "Experiences of Fatherhood Among Young Black Fathers Under the Care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services"

 

2017

Lindsay Huffhines, University of Kansas, "Childhood Adversity and Systemic Inflammation in Youth Foster Care: The Role of Family Cohesion"

 

2015

Samantha Brown, University of Denver, "A Mindfulness-Based Intervention to Improve Family Functioning Among Child Welfare-Involved Families with Substance Use"

 

2014

Helen Milojecich, University of California, Irvine, "The Role of Maltreatment on Adolescents’ Development of Emotional Competence"

 

2013

Deborah Alley, University of California, Davis, "Priming a Sexual Stereotype: Influences on Adults’ Perceptions of Child Sexual Abuse Victims"

 

2012

Jessica Dym Bartlett, Tufts University, "Young Mothers, Infant Neglect, and Discontinuities in Intergenerational Cycles of Maltreatment"

 

2011

Angelique Day, Western Michigan University, "An Examination of Post-Secondary Educational Access, Retention, and Success of Foster Care Youth"

 

2010

Julie Laura Cohen, University of Arizona, "Enhancing Retention of Foster Parents: The Role of Motivational Interviewing"

 

2008

Tisha Wiley, University of Illinois at Chicago, "The Effects of Child Maltreatment and Environmental Stability on Children’s Trajectories of Aggressive Behavior"

 

2006

Stephanie Block, University of California, Davis, "Developmental and Individual Differences in DRM Memory”

 

2004

Shadi Houshyar, Yale University, "Resilience in Maltreated Children"

 

2003

David Zielinski, Cornell University,"Child Maltreatment and Adult Socioeconomic Outcomes: The Meditational Role of Psychopathology"

 

2002

Amanda Schweder, Yale University, "Behavior Problems in Maltreated Children Removed from their Homes: Risk and Protective Factors"

 

2001

Nicole E. Marcus, University of Miami