Dr. Colin MacLeod, Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the Department of Psychology, has received the 2023 Clifford T. Morgan Distinguished Leadership Award from the Psychonomic Society, the major international organization for cognitive psychology. The award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of cognitive psychology and who have demonstrated sustained leadership and service to the discipline. The Society annually recognizes individuals with this award named after one of the founders and the first Chair of the Governing Board.
Throughout his career, MacLeod’s research has emphasized the broad domain of human cognition, with particular focus on the interplay between attention and memory, and the role that learning plays in that interaction. MacLeod has been an integral member of the Psychonomic Society since joining in 1976. He and his students have each year presented their research at the annual meeting of the Society in November. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Society’s journal Memory & Cognition from 2001-2005 and served as an elected member of the Governing Board from 2010 to 2015. During that time, he was also Chair of the Publications Committee. In that role, he oversaw the Society’s six journals and was in charge of searches for Editor-in-Chief of all of the Society’s journals.
Recipients of the Clifford T. Morgan award have demonstrated a commitment to scientific and methodological rigor in the community of researchers at the forefront of the experimental study of cognition. Recipients also have demonstrated commitment and dedication to developing and advancing the Psychonomic Society in its mission to foster the science of cognition through the communication of basic research in experimental psychology and allied sciences. Awardees are permanently recognized on the Society’s website.
MacLeod was also recognized for his leadership of the Canadian society most closely associated with the Psychonomic Society: the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science for which he served as President in 2009-2010. That association had previously recognized him with its Richard C. Tees Distinguished Leadership Award in 2017. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2016, Dr. MacLeod also received the Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology from the Canadian Psychological Association in 2018.
This item first appeared in the August 1 edition of the Daily Bulletin