Charles Swencionis, professor of psychology at YU’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, has received the 2024 Cynthia D. Belar Award for Excellence in Health Psychology Education and Training by the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 38 (Society for Health Psychology). This prestigious award honors those who have made outstanding contributions to the education and training of students in health psychology, with a focus on innovative teaching, mentorship and curriculum development.
The award recognizes the significant and enduring impact Dr. Swencionis has had on the field, including his leadership in developing a large and productive Ph.D. training program for health psychologists, his dedication to advancing the profession and his ability to communicate his influential research about the health psychology of obesity to the lay public.
Dr. Swencionis held a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Fellowship during his graduate studies at Stanford University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1978. He was awarded the Milton Rosenbaum Award for Basic Research in Psychiatry during his postdoctoral training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine before becoming a founding faculty member of YU’s Health Psychology Ph.D. program in the early 1980s, a joint initiative between Ferkauf and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Reflecting on the program’s beginnings, Dr. Swencionis noted that “Yeshiva University was at the forefront in offering a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a health emphasis. In 1979, Dr. Ephraim Friedman, then Dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, asked his colleague Dr. Gilbert Levin what could be done to broaden opportunities for advanced psychology research and education on campus. Gil invited me to join him, and together we co-founded the Ph.D. program, one of the first in the nation specifically dedicated to health psychology." Since then, the program has produced health psychologists who have made significant contributions to the field, in both practice and research, with many now holding faculty positions at institutions such as Harvard, Yale, the University of Michigan and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In addition to shaping the Ph.D. program, Dr. Swencionis was instrumental in the early development of the field of health psychology. From 1981 to1985, he served on the first editorial board for Health Psychology, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the APA, which focuses on the intersection of psychological, behavioral, and biological factors in health and illness.
In 1983, he was one of the organizers of the Arden House conference on Education and Training in Health Psychology, which played a key role in advancing the field. Sponsored by the APA, the event brought together leaders in psychology, health care and education to address the growing need for formalized training in this emerging discipline, ultimately helping to establish health psychology as a recognized and distinct field within the broader discipline of psychology.
A noted author, Dr. Swencionis has written and edited five books, including The Healing Brain: A Scientific Reader; Sourcebook for National Working Conference on Education and Training in Health Psychology; The Lazy Person's Guide to Fitness; Battle for the Mind; and The Complete Weight Loss Workbook, which won the 1998 American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award. He also co-authored a paper recognized as the "Master Teaching Paper of the Decade" by Cardiovascular Reviews & Reports in 1992.
Having served as a professor of psychology at Ferkauf for more than 40 years, Dr. Swencionis has also been a faculty member at Einstein since 1981, with appointments in both epidemiology and population health as well as psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
