Andrew Meltzoff has been honored by the Association for Psychological Science with a William James Fellow Award for 2020.
Faculty/staff honors: Education research, Salish Sea Prize, Association for Psychological Science award
UW News staff
Recent honors to University of Washington faculty and staff have come from the American Education Research Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the SeaDoc Society.
Andrew Meltzoff honored by the Association for Psychological Science
Andrew Meltzoff, UW professor of psychology and co-director of the UW-based Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, has been recognized by the Association for Psychological Science with a William James Fellow Award for 2020.
Meltzoff was one of four this year to receive the award, which is given to members of the association, or APS, to honor “their lifetime of significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology.”
The association praised Meltzoff, saying his “landmark studies in infant development helped reconfigure our understanding of preverbal cognition.
“Meltzoff demonstrated imitation in early infancy and proposed it as a powerful social learning mechanism by which infants begin to acquire the behaviors, skills, and norms of their culture. Through a set of classic studies, Meltzoff made key discoveries concerning the nature and functions of imitation in childhood.”
Meltzoff is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair in psychology. Other recipients of the award this year are from Stanford University, University College London and the University of Michigan.
The award, the highest the association gives for contributions to the science of psychology, is named for American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910).