Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professorship

Professorship focused on developing research focused on relationships between the human brain and human behavior (psychological and brain science)
Eligibility: Tenure track Penn State faculty members in the interdisciplinary fields of psychological and brain science at University Park and the College of Medicine who are within 10 years of having completed the Ph.D. at the start of the award period.
Financial support range: up to $20,000 per year for 3 years

The Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professorship will provide supplemental funding to social and behavioral science faculty members at Penn State whose research is focused on relationships between the human brain and human behavior (psychological and brain science).  The award will rotate every three years, providing seed money (approximately $20,000 per year) for innovative research projects and programs.

Dr. Graham attended Penn State as an undergraduate from 1935 to 1938. As a young woman whose career aspirations in the sciences challenged the conventions of the period, she was grateful for the education, encouragement, and opportunities she received at Penn State, which included a fellowship for her first year in graduate school at Yale University.  After completing her doctorate in psychology at Yale in 1942, Dr. Graham went on to become a renowned scholar in developmental psychology and psychophysiology.  Her work serves as a foundation for what is now the rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of developmental neuroscience.  Dr. Graham received many honors during her career, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences, President of the Society for Research in Child Development, and Penn State’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1983. Her daughter, Mary B. Graham, created this Early Career Professorship to honor the work of her late mother.

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Questions can be sent to Koraly Pérez-Edgar, kxp24@psu.edu, and Jason Shumberger, jbs7008@psu.edu.