Shana Levin, associate professor of psychology, has been awarded the 2007 Early Career Research Award of the Western Psychological Association (WPA), in recognition of exceptional achievements in an early career stage that have contributed to the advancement of the science and profession of psychology.
Levin, who was nominated for the award by Ron Riggio, the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and director of the Kravis Leadership Institute, says her research examines group identification, group dominance motives, ideologies of group inequality, and inter-group relations in different cultural contexts.
In a forthcoming book, Levin says, "We use longitudinal data to examine social identity and inter-group relations on the college campus. In other work, I have examined relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, and Muslim and Christian Arabs in Lebanon.
"We currently are designing a four-nation study of attitudes toward the United States in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt, with follow-up work examining Americans' and Israelis' attitudes toward people in the Muslim world."
Levin was invited to deliver an address on her research at the WPA's conference in Irvine earlier this month. She received the association's Early Career Research Awarda $500 cash award and was elected a Fellow of the Western Psychological Association at the convention last year.
"I felt incredibly honored to receive this award and give an invited address at the annual convention," Levin said. "The Claremont Colleges have a deep history of involvement in the Western Psychological Association and I am delighted to participate in this long tradition. I'm grateful for the mentorship of my colleagues, Ron Riggio, who nominated me for the award, and Mark Costanzo, chair of the department of psychology.
"My research in the field invigorates my teaching in the classroom," Levin says, "and teaching makes me a better researcher. I couldn't do one without the other, and I am grateful that I get to do both with such great students and colleagues."