APA Gives Lykes Achievement Award

By Office of News Public Affairs |

The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence of the American Psychological Association recently selected Lynch School of Education Professor M. Brinton Lykes for its prestigious Ignacio Martín-Baró Lifetime Peace Practitioner Award.

The award honors outstanding service by a psychologist who has partnered with community members to design and implement activities that raise awareness of human rights issues and result in greater community empowerment in peace building and social justice initiatives.

Lykes’ extensive activities in the area of community-based participatory research, particularly in the areas of human rights abuse and state-sponsored terrorism, exemplify the work that the founders of this award wish to acknowledge. The award is named for Ignacio Martín-Baró, SJ, a scholar, social psychologist, and philosopher who was among the six priests and two women murdered in the Jesuit residence at the University of Central America in San Salvador in November 1989.

Lykes, associate director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College as well as chair of the Lynch School’s Department of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology, has been invited to address the APA’s annual convention in Honolulu.

“Brinton Lykes’ practical engagement with people facing the struggles that arise from conflict and injustice is a model for all of us who seek to advance human rights today,” said Center Director David Hollenbach, SJ, holder of BC’s University Chair in Human Rights and International Justice. “It is a privilege having her as a colleague.”

The APA is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, and the world’s largest association of psychologists, with membership including more than 137,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students.

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