Singapore, Friday, 16 September 2011 – The American Psychological Association (APA) has conferred the prestigious award of Fellow status in the APA to Professor David Chan ( 陈振中 ), Director of the Behavioural Sciences Institute and Professor of Psychology of the Singapore Management University (SMU) for his outstanding contributions in the field of psychology.
APA, which currently has more than 154,000 members, is the largest association of psychologists worldwide. Its mission is to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
The APA Fellow status is an honour bestowed upon individuals who have shown evidence of unusual and outstanding contributions and impact in the field of psychology. Examples of prominent scientists who have received the APA Fellow status award include Nobel Laureate in Economics Professor Daniel Kahneman and world-renowned psychologists Professor Robert Sternberg and Professor Ed Diener.
Professor Chan is internationally known for his various contributions in research methods and organisational psychology, particularly in his research on longitudinal modeling and how individuals adapt to various changes across diverse situations.
In addition to the APA Fellow award, Professor Chan has received several prestigious international scholarly awards from various scientific organisations. In April this year, he was appointed Elected Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology (SIOP) and was the first Asian to receive this prestigious award. In June, he was named Elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), and in 2010 he was presented the award of Elected Fellow of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP). Professor Chan is the first Asian to receive Elected Fellow status from all four international associations of psychology (i.e., IAAP, SIOP, APS, APA).
This is not the first time that Professor Chan made history. In 2003, he became the first non-American to receive the prestigious Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award presented by SIOP. He was ranked 9th worldwide in the list of Top 100 most published researchers of the 1990s in the top journals of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Professor Chan is editor and board member on several scholarly journals. He also serves on various scientific advisory panels.
About the Behavioural Sciences Institute (BSI)
The Behavioural Sciences Institute (BSI) is a multi-disciplinary research institute for creating, disseminating and applying scientific knowledge about human behaviours in various social, organisational and cultural settings.
The BSI operates in a collaborative manner by bringing academia, business and government to work together to better understand human behaviours. The purpose is to promote the adoption of evidence-based approaches to develop effective organisational practices and public policies with the view to enhancing performance, adaptability and well-being at the individual, organisational and societal levels.
The Institute has received a S$4.5 million grant from the Civil Service College as a start-up fund to build capabilities and conduct research with public sector agencies. To ensure long term sustainability, SMU will raise additional funds to support the Institute's activities.