Healthy Teen Network is pleased to recognize Abraham Wandersman, PhD, as the 2017 Douglas B. Kirby Researcher of the Year.  

Abraham Wandersman, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology at the University of South Carolina-Columbia. Dr. Wandersman performs research and program evaluation on citizen participation in community organizations and coalitions and on interagency collaboration. He is a co-editor of three books on empowerment evaluation and a co-author of several Getting To Outcomes accountability books (how-to manuals for planning, implementation, and evaluation to achieve results). Wandersman collaborated with CDC to develop the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation—the subject of two special issues of a peer-reviewed journal (2008, 2012). In 1998, he received the Myrdal Award for Evaluation Practice from the American Evaluation Association. In 2000, he was elected President of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA). In 2005, he was awarded the Distinguished Theory and Research Contributions Award by SCRA. In 2008, Getting To Outcomes won the American Evaluation Association’s Outstanding Publication Award. In 2013, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Injury Prevention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2017, Wandersman and his multidisciplinary evaluation team won the 2017 Outstanding Evaluation Award from the American Evaluation Association for the formative evaluation of the SCALE healthy community coalition grant to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). 

Healthy Teen Network and our members will honor Dr. Wandersman’s contributions to adolescent sexual and reproductive health by presenting this award on Tuesday, October 3, 2017, Social Norms and Culture: Honoring Experiences & Perspectives during our awards luncheon, at the Hilton Baltimore. 

Read about some recent previous Researcher of the Year award winners: 2016: Paula Braveman, 2015: Rick Barth, and 2014: Ralph DiClemente.