UA Psychology Professor Earns Distinguished Service Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama’s Dr. John Lochman is the 2014 recipient of the American Board of Professional Psychology’s Distinguished Service Award, given annually to a certified specialist who has made outstanding contributions to the science and profession of psychology throughout his or her career.

Lochman, professor and Doddridge Saxon Chair of Clinical Psychology, joined the UA faculty in 1998. He is also the director of the Center for Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems at UA where he is actively involved in grant-funded intervention research.

He will receive the award at the ABPP annual convocation Aug. 9 in Washington, D.C. Additionally, Lochman will deliver an address at the  2015 Convocation Aug. 8, 2015, in Toronto, Canada.

Psychologists considered for the award are practicing clinical psychology and providing services and engaging in research across all developmental levels — from children through adults — and across different types of psychopathology. The individual selected for the award has to have a national reputation broadly across the field of psychology.

Lochman has served as an officer and president of the ABPP Board of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, the primary certification board for child psychologists. His research interests include prevention, child aggression and intervention research.

“In a lot of ways, I get very intrigued with many of our research projects,” Lochman said. “All of it has value for me. There are some of our studies that are much more focused on the mechanisms that lead to the development, like what are the factors for a child having oppositional defiant disorder? Trying to understand the factors of community and family, and what are some of the biological factors.

“All of it is important because it shows us what accounts for what we’re seeing today. I’m interested in all that but more so in how that information helps us plan interventions and to conduct intervention research.

“Treatment interventions that help people with serious problems, conduct problems and trouble with the law are interesting, but we are even more intrigued by the preventive interventions to help detour the negative antisocial trajectories that may occur,” Lochman said.