Personalities

• Sigmund Hough, PhD, is the new president-elect of the Massachusetts Neuropsychological Society. Hough, a professor at Harvard Medical School and Boston University School of Medicine, provides rehabilitation neuropsychological care and research to assist individuals with spinal cord injuries and disorders.

• Robert M. Kaplan, PhD, has been named the new director of the National Institutes of Health Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and NIH Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Kaplan, who is expected to join NIH in early 2011, comes to NIH from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is distinguished professor in the department of health services at the School of Public Health and the department of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine.

• The New Jersey Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism has awarded Michael Lewis, PhD, a two-year, $469,636 grant to research brain development in children with autism. Lewis, who directs the Institute for the Study of Child Development at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, will use the grant to explore children’s self-referential behavior as a function of autism spectrum disorders.

• The University of Texas at Austin has honored Diane Schallert, PhD, with the Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Schallert, who teaches educational psychology, received the award for her dedication to helping students learn by doing.

• Oklahoma State University has named Robert J. Sternberg, PhD, as its new provost and senior vice president. Sternberg began the new position in August.

• Psychologist gets $16 million grant for HIV/AIDS education
  
  Medications and treatment protocols for treating HIV/AIDS frequently change, creating a challenge for clinicians who must stay abreast of the latest and best treatments. At the same time, HIV/AIDS prevention efforts are often stymied by public policies that prevent access to accurate information, clean needles and condoms.
  
  Recognizing the need for better HIV/AIDS education at all levels, Michael D. Knox, PhD, applied for — and won — a $16 million AIDS Education and Training Center grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration.
  
  With the funding, Knox, a distinguished professor of mental health law, medicine and global health at the University of South Florida in Tampa, will use psychological science to improve prevention programs. The five-year grant will employ 80 part-time university medical educators in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to teach physicians, nurses, dentists and other health-care providers on the best ways to diagnose and treat the disease. The center will also offer online education and will assess the quality of care provided to people with HIV/AIDS.
  
  “We hope to help patients by increasing the number of health-care professionals capable of diagnosing and treating HIV disease throughout the Florida/Caribbean region,” Knox says.

—J. Clark