At Development 2010, the Pickering Award for Contributions to Developmental Psychology in Canada was given to Dr. Jeffrey Bisanz, in recognition of his contributions to Developmental Psychology in the areas of mentorship, leadership, and scholarship. Dr. Bisanz was chosen to receive this award in recognition of his extensive influence to our field and through those, his influence on Canadian children.
Mentorship: Jeff has supervised, encouraged, and supported in so many ways a very large group of students and colleagues to achieve their maximum potential. Jeff forces us to ask good questions and to pursue the answers.
Leadership: Jeff has shown exemplary leadership in the field of developmental psychology, for example through the creation of DPnet, organizing the Canadian reception at SRCD, and developing a booklet that described developmental programs in Canada. Furthermore, his contributions to community-university partnerships, in particular, his leadership in CUP, illustrate his amazing commitment to connecting the community to researchers, to their mutual benefit.
Scholarship: Through peer-reviewed articles, position pieces, invited presentations and conference participation, Jeff has contributed to our understanding of children’s thinking by the depth, thoroughness, and richness of the analyses that he provides. Jeff has the ability to link his fundamental empirical work to larger questions such as “How do children think?” and “Why do they think that way”?
Thus, we were very pleased to award Jeff Bisanz the 2010 Pickering Award for contributions to Developmental Psychology in Canada.