Boston College Scholar Wins the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Psychology in the Public Interest

Janet E. Helms, the Augustus Long Professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development and director of  Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture at Boston College, has received the American Psychological Foundation’s 2019 Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Psychology in the Public Interest.

The Washington, D.C.-based foundation is a grant-making organization affiliated with the American Psychological Association. It provides financial support for innovative research and programs that enhance the power of psychology to elevate the human condition and advance human potential both now and in generations to come. The American Psychological Association is the nation’s leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology, with more than 115,700 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members.

Dr. Helms joined the faculty at Boston College in 2000. She is a past president of the APA’s Society of Counseling Psychology. In 1991, she was the inaugural recipient of the Janet E. Helms Award for Mentoring and Scholarship in Professional Psychology, now an annual honor given by Columbia University Teachers College.

Professor Helms is the co-author of Using Race and Culture in Counseling Psychotherapy: Theory and Process (Allyn & Bacon, 1994). She holds a Ph.D. from Iowa State University.