NJPA Academic & Scientific Affairs Awards  

The New Jersey Psychological Association’s Division of Academic & Scientific Affairs is pleased to announce several awards that recognize the accomplishments and scholarly contributions of our students and colleagues.  Self-nominations are encouraged and nominees need not be members of NJPA. The Committee on Academic and Scientific Affairs reserves the right to make all final determinations on which awardees will be selected. The awards are not necessarily issued each year. 

Distinguished Faculty Award
This award acknowledges the efforts of a psychologist faculty member, either full-time faculty or holding a scientific position, for their research, teaching, or training efforts. The distinguished faculty is provided $200, awarded to one faculty member annually, with the desire that the faculty member awards one of their students in their lab with the $200.  

Student Research Award
This award is presented to a student (undergraduate or graduate) in psychology who is attending a college/university in New Jersey, interning in a New Jersey institution, or an NJPA student affiliate, who has demonstrated exceptional research potential as determined by his or her academic department. This research should have been completed within the last two years. The awardee is invited to present their research as a poster at the NJPA Fall Conference. One awardee is selected annually and given a stipend in the amount of $200.

2020 NJPA Academic & Scientific Affairs Award Recipients:  

Distinguished Teacher Award Winner - Melany Rivera - Maldonado, PhD 
Dr. Rivera Maldonado is a  professor and Director of Clinical Training at Felician University's PsyD in Counseling Psychology program.  She works tirelessly to ensure optimal performance of all students in the program. She assisted greatly in ensuring the program received an APA accreditation site visit in a very short amount of time. Dr. Rivera Maldonado also encouraged and assisted several students with their dissertation and research interests and goals. With her guidance, students surpassed their personal academic goals and were able to achieve greater success. Dr. Rivera Maldonado always went beyond the extra mile to help all students in need. She hosted meetings and webinars to assist students with their externship and internship application process, she offered mock interview meetings and groups for any students who expressed an interest, she even kept abreast of any and all externship or internship opportunities that students may not have come across and made sure to circulate these opportunities among the cohorts regularly. Dr. Rivera Maldonado was a true leader and ally to all students at Felician University. 

Award Graduate Student Research Award Winners Christopher Watkins, and Co-Authors A. Keshani Perera, Bryan Alava, and Fernanda Moura for their research on “Exploring the Relationship Between Racial Microaggressions and Clinical Symptomatology in Ethnic Minority College Students.” The authors are doctoral students at William Paterson University.

The 2019 NJPA Academic & Scientific Affairs Awards: 
2019 Distinguished Teacher Award Winner - Daniel Mahoney, EdD
2019 Graduate Student Research Award Winner - Sekinat Kuku
2019 Master’s Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation Award Winner - Shoshana May

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  Students: New Jersey Psychological Association Graduate Students