The following awards were presented at the 13th Biennial ISCHP Conference in Rancagua, Chile (26th – 28th July, 2023).
The Emerging Researcher Award
This award is given to a researcher who obtained their PhD within the last 10 years and is recognised by colleagues as having contributed to critical health psychology – methodologically, theoretically, on a particular topic, or in a way that led to impact (including publishing in national or international journals).
Dr Maria Alejandra Energici
Alejandra is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at the Universidad Andrés Bello in Santiago, Chile, and was one of the workshop presenters at this year’s conference as well as being a member of the local organising committee. As the nomination outlined, Alejandra has already made an exceptional contributions to the field of critical health psychology and social psychology. Alejandra was awarded her PhD in 2015 and has published extensively in international journals and books. Alejandra’s research combines critical perspectives with New Materialisms and feminist perspectives. Alejandra’s CV already mirrors that of a senior researcher due to her immense creativity, intellect, and passion for critical research in health and body issues.
The Mid-Career Researcher Award
This award is given to a researcher who obtained their PhD within the last 10 years and is recognised by colleagues as having contributed to critical health psychology – methodologically, theoretically, on a particular topic, or in a way that led to impact (including publishing in national or international journals).
Dr Guido Veronese
Guido is an associate professor in the Department of Human Sciences & Education at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Milan, Italy. The nomination explained how Guido devotes his work to exploring well-being and agentic practices within populations oppressed by war, colonialism, and political violence. He has consistently enabled an alternative gaze to the predominant biomedical gaze. Guido is recognized by his colleagues as an authentic ally for his ongoing advocacy for a just, sustainable, and anti-oppressive science, as well as for his continuing testimony to the dehumanizing conditions that oppressed populations experience.
The Lifetime Achievement Award
This award is given to a senior researcher with a significant number of years of doing work in critical health psychology who has contributed significantly to critical health psychology – methodologically, theoretically, on a particular topic, or in a way that led to impact, and is recognised by colleagues as an international leader in the field.
Emeritus Professor Wendy Stainton-Rogers
Wendy needs no introduction. She was a founding leader of ISCHP from its formal inception as a society in 2001 at the conference in Birmingham, UK, when she was already an established leader in health psychology. The nomination emphasises how Wendy’s impact goes far beyond her international scholastic achievements. She has been an intellectual force to be reckoned with in critical health psychology for many decades, and facilitator of career development for countless students and colleagues. What is most remarkable about Wendy is that life-threatening illness and disability have not diminished her strength of spirit, passion and commitment to making a meaningful contribution to academia and to challenging injustice in society. Her nominator says they cannot think of a person who deserves the award more than Wendy and this sentiment is shared by all who know her. Wendy’s husband Robyn Long also gets an honourable mention for his longstanding support of ISCHP from the sidelines.
The Impact with Communities Award
This award is given for being a researcher who is recognised by colleagues as using critical health psychology with communities to effect change, either through research, consumer advisory work or consultation.
Yasmina Lotfi
Yasmina Lotfi is a PhD student at University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland. Yasmina’s doctoral research involves working with circumcised women to explore constructions of the body and sexuality in Western and non-Western contexts in the digital age. By engaging with communities in Egypt and Switzerland, she has co-produced qualitative data among hard-to-reach communities and among health professionals involved in this practice. Her research provides a nuanced, socio-culturally adapted approach to orient these women beyond Western perspectives, to neither downplay nor stigmatize excision. Yasmina overcame potential risks to her safety to conduct this groundbreaking research with timely impact for these communities and build an understanding that accounts for the shifting digital landscape.
The Lifetime Impact with Communities Award
This award is given to recognise a significant career focus on community impact.
Dr Ian Lubek
Ian is an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Canada. For over 25 years Ian and the NGO he formed, SirCHESI, have used community-based participatory action research to with women in Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat Cambodia) involved as beer sellers and hostesses at entertainment venues. The aims of this community-driven work were to: 1) counter customers’ pressures to engage in unprotected sex, 2) gain training to move on to safer hotel work, and 3) become peer educators to help others keep safe (by using condoms). In 2000, when they started this action research, the prevalence of HIV was 25%; this was reduced to 1% by 2012. Ian helped build and fund the local NGO and assisted in forming a union that empowered locals and doubled salaries. This research is used as a core example of health psychology research in many critically oriented textbooks and has made a long-term impact.
The Feminism and Psychology Best Student Presentation Award
Beck Lowe
Beck’s award winning presentation was titled: “Transgender and Non-Binary Perspectives on the Period Positive Movement”.
Beck is a PhD student at the University of Worcester, UK. Her work focuses on the reciprocal relationship between individual psychological wellbeing and dominant philosophical beliefs, and political issues that are formed in the process.