All News

Professor of Psychology Leslie Rescorla is Awarded the 2018 Janet L. Hoopes Award

December 4, 2018
Leslie Rescorla

Professor of Psychology Leslie Rescorla has been awarded the 2018 Janet L. Hoopes Award from the Pennsylvania Branch of the International Dyslexia Association (PBIDA) at the PBIDA's 40th annual conference on Reading, Literacy and Learning Disabilities.

Hoopes was a professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr from 1970 to 1985 and preceded Rescorla as the director of Bryn Mawr's Child Study Institute. She was instrumental in the founding of PBIDA.

Rescorla arrived at Bryn Mawr in September 1985 to fill the faculty position previously held by Hoopes. Seventy-five percent of her time was to be spent on teaching and research and 25 percent in administration of the Phoebe Anna Thorne School preschool programs and the Child Study Institute, with the added opportunity of having a part-time clinical practice. An important component of her position was directing the post-Master’s School Psychology Certification Program, which Hoopes had started.

Rescorla took advantage of her unique position -- and generations of students, from preschoolers to undergrads to graduate students, have been the beneficiaries of her diverse interests. As Director of the School Psychology Certification Program and the Clinical Developmental Psychology Program for 20 years, she trained dozens of psychologists in clinical and school psychology, many currently practicing in the region. She also supervised 44 Ph.D. theses, 26 master’s theses, and 77 undergraduate senior theses – most of which dealt with language development/delay, academic achievement, or developmental psychopathology. She never stopped being a researcher and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and co-authored numerous books. During her years at Bryn Mawr, hundreds of children have attended the Phoebe Anna Thorne preschool and language enrichment programs and received services at the Child Study Institute.