John R. Graham Award for Distinguished Mentorship in Personality Assessment
The John R. Graham Award for Distinguished Mentorship in Personality Assessment is given to individuals who have fostered excellence in the field of personality assessment by their mentorship of students and junior colleagues. Excellence in mentorship is reflected in the quantity of their mentees, its direct impact on their careers, including the quality of their accomplishments in personality assessment. The mentor’s influence on the next generation may be evident through training programs, research supervision, and/or clinical training.
Eligibility Criteria:
A nominee must be (or if retired, must have been) a member of the Society for Personality Assessment. Individuals who provided mentorship in research and/or clinical activities are eligible for the award.
Required Materials for Nomination Packet:
- A single letter of nomination signed by three supporters. The letter must be written by a mentee of the nominee and:
- Summarize the nominee’s influence on students and colleagues;
- Reflect the range of the nominee’s influence; and
- Focus on the nominee’s mentoring rather than on other professional accomplishments.
- A current curriculum vitae
- A list of the nominee’s mentees, occupations, and selected relevant accomplishments
Meet the Jack R. Graham Award Winner, Dr. Stephen Finn!
Stephen Finn discovered his love of teaching and mentoring in high school, when he tutored others in math and Spanish for their New York State Regents exams. After completing his undergraduate degree, he spent a year at the University of Göttingen in Germany helping to teach statistics to psychology students. Eager to make statistics engaging, he developed creative ways to bring the subject to life and was gratified when an unusually high number of students passed the national exam. During his Ph.D. training, Finn received outstanding supervision in psychological assessment from mentors Auke Tellegen, Ada Hegion, and Ken Hampton—an experience that deeply shaped his own approach to mentoring. As a faculty member at the University of Texas, he guided students in research, psychological assessment, and psychotherapy, and led assessment supervision groups for clinicians in the Austin community. In 1993, Finn founded the Center for Therapeutic Assessment, through which he has since taught thousands of psychologists worldwide about personality assessment and Therapeutic Assessment. His enduring goal has been to show how personality tests can serve as empathy magnifiers—tools to help clients understand themselves more fully and heal from shame. Many of the clinicians he has mentored now hold prominent academic or clinical positions and credit his influence as formative in their professional development.
