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Evelyn Hooker Award for Distinguished Contribution by an Ally

To acknowledge the ever-widening circle of people who support Division 44’s mission, the Division 44 Executive Committee launched the Evelyn Hooker Award for Distinguished Contribution by an Ally in 2008. Dr. Evelyn Hooker, a recipient of the 1991 APA Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in the Public Interest, championed research which has contributed to depathologizing, decriminalizing and destigmatizing people with minority sexual orientations. Dr. Hooker's legacy as an ally of people with sexual minority orientations has had a profound impact on all facets of LGBT psychology. In commemoration of her contribution, the Division offers this award for distinguished contribution by an ally in the areas of research, clinical practice, education and training, public advocacy, mentorship, and/or leadership.

2008 Winner

Letitia Anne Peplau - Especially on the inauguration of this award, no more fitting colleague could be named than Dr. Letitia Anne Peplau. Dr. Peplau has been Professor of Psychology at UCLA since 1973 and published her first of many articles on sexuality in 1978. Interestingly, this article received the Evelyn Hooker Research Award from the National Gay Academics Union in 1979. Dr. Peplau has continued to be a leader in the field of lesbian and gay studies. Her major focus has been on same-sex relationships, beginning with lesbians in 1980 and gay men in 1981. Over the past quarter century she has studied such relationship issues as relationship satisfaction, the balance of power, monogamy, African American lesbians and gay men, bisexuality, reasons for relationship terminations, and sexual risk. In addition, she has focused on lesbian mothers, psychotherapy with lesbians and gay men, social support, the development of sexual orientation, disclosure of sexual orientation, body satisfaction, and stigma management. She has well over 100 publications, with a majority focusing on sexual orientation. Dr. Peplau has had a major role mentoring the next generations of lesbian, gay and bisexual students. She collaborated with many students at a time when LGB students would have had a hard time finding psychologist advisors and mentors willing to engage in sexual orientation research. Many of these students have since gone on to academic careers themselves and now mentor their own LGBT students. Dr. Peplau has served on thirteen editorial boards of journals and book series, including the Journal of Homosexuality, the journal Sexuality Research and Social Policy and the Columbia University Press Series on Lesbian and Gay Studies. She has also served on the Placek Research Award Review Committee, was a member of the Fellows Selection Committee of Division 44, and was a member of the Working Group on Same-Sex Families of APA. In all of these tasks, she has supported the work of others working on LGBT issues. In sum, Dr. Peplau is an outstanding choice as the inaugural recipient of the Evelyn Hooker Award for Distinguished Contribution by an Ally. She is an ally who has affirmed LGB research so that countless psychologists and other academics could follow in her footsteps.

Nominations

Please send nominations for this award to the President-Elect.