Excellence in Health Psychology Research Award – Ken Resnicow, PhD

TheHealthPsychologistNews from the Society for Health Psychology

Ken Resnicow, PhD

Ken Resnicow, PhD

Dr. Resnicow is currently the Irwin M. Rosenstock Collegiate Professor of Public Health in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan. He is also Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine, the Associate Director of Outreach and Health Disparities Research at the University of Michigan’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Director of the Center for Health Communications Research.

Professor Resnicow’s work exemplifies excellence in design and evaluation of health promotion and motivational interventions. His is the leading expert in designing culturally sensitive community-based interventions for nutrition, physical activity, and smoking cessation in minority and underserved populations. He specializes in theory-based tailoring including ethnic identity and self-determination theory. He has worked with numerous universities, researchers and practitioners both nationally and internationally and with governmental agencies including NIH and the CDC. Dr. Resnicow has over 500 peer-reviewed publications and has had continuous extramural funding since he began his career in 1987. His all time H-index is 75 and he has over 20 papers that have been cited between 200 to 700 times. His recent work focuses on integrating his unique tailored interventions into patient populations using innovative communication technologies to enhance motivation and compliance with behavioral changes interventions. Resnicow is an insightful and thoughtful colleague, always available to offer very useful advice. He has also mentored numerous students, postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty as well as mid-career and senior faculty with a special emphasis on working to promote those from ethnic minority backgrounds. His mentorship and sincere dedication to scientific excellence have been instrumental to so many colleagues and he has made a tremendous impact especially on the next generation of health psychologists.

Resnicow has also served in many prestigious national leadership roles including being an elected participant of the US Preventive Services Task Force for Behavioral Counseling Interventions Expert Forum, and Chairing the Site Specific Approaches to Prevention and Management of Pediatric Obesity for NIDDK. He has also served on numerous NIH study section panels as well as national advisory boards, including Chairing the Obesity Prevention Task Force for the American Medical Association and Chairing the Steering Committee on Pediatric Diabetes Prevention Trials for NIDDK.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Resnicow for the 2018 Excellence in Health Psychology Research Award.

by Dawn K. Wilson, PhD