APA Honors Psychology Professor with Distinguished Research Award

Psychology professor Tom Hess will receive the American Psychological Association’s most prestigious award for research on adult development and aging.

APA Division 20 (Adult Development and Aging) recently named Hess the 2016 recipient of the Baltes Distinguished Research Achievement Award. The award, sponsored by the Margret and Paul B. Baltes Foundation, recognizes researchers with distinguished careers of exceptional theoretical and empirical contributions to the psychological science of aging.  

A distinguished professor of psychology at NC State, Hess is among the world’s leading researchers on the effects of aging on cognition. In his 35-year career at the university, he’s published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters, delivered dozens of public talks and lectures and authored and co-authored four edited books. His writings have been cited nearly 3,500 times by researchers around the world.

Hess has received more than $7 million in external research funding for his work, including a recent $1.84 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Under the five-year grant, Hess and a team of researchers will study  how both older and younger adults in Wake County respond to effortful cognitive activity and what factors may influence participation in activities that may be beneficial to cognitive health in later life.

At NC State, Hess serves as the principal investigator of the Adult Development Laboratory, which conducts a variety of studies focused on understanding cognitive functioning throughout the adult lifespan. The College of Humanities and Social Sciences awarded Hess a 2016 Outstanding Research Award for his work.

As this year’s Baltes recipient, Hess will receive a plaque and cash award of $5,000 at the 2016 APA convention in August. Hess will deliver the Baltes award address at the convention in 2017.