The American Psychological Association will honor UC Riverside assistant professor Stephanie Moore with the 2024 Lightner Witmer Award, which recognizes early-career professional and academic school psychologists who have demonstrated sustained, outstanding scholarship.

The award will be presented by the APA’s Division of School Psychology at its annual conference in Seattle next month. 

“The list of researchers who have received this award in the past includes individuals whom I have admired and looked up to during my career,” said Moore, a licensed psychologist and nationally certified school psychologist who joined UCR’s School of Education faculty in 2020. “I am truly humbled to be recognized among them and honored to receive this award.”

The award is limited to scholars who received their doctorate within the past seven years and whose work has nourished school psychology to grow as a discipline and profession.

Moore said her research focuses on identifying and evaluating strategies for supporting student mental health and promoting mental health equity. Her most recent work has identified opportunities to better support schools and their leaders to improve school-based practice, challenges for child mental health service delivery, and frameworks for culturally responsible mental health screenings in schools. This work includes developing methods to address common barriers to improve universal mental health screening in schools.