The winners of five Campbell awards were celebrated this week at two meetings held online. Jeremy Grimshaw, President of the Campbell Board, made the presentations.
Robert Boruch Award
Joshua R. Polanin was awarded the 2021 Robert Boruch Award for distinctive contributions to research that informs public policy. Joshua is a principal researcher in the Human Services division at American Institutes for Research (AIR). He is an expert in quantitative methodology and has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles across education, criminology, public health and methodology, including more than 20 peer-reviewed meta-analyses. He is a co-director of the Methods of Synthesis and Integration Center (MOSAIC), an inter-disciplinary collection of research synthesis projects conducted at AIR.
Joshua leads multiple federally-funded evidence synthesis projects, including the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) contract that maintains evidence synthesis standards, provides training and technical assistance, and coordinates the WWC review processes. He is Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI of three large-scale systematic reviews and meta-analyses funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, National Science Foundation and National Institute of Justice.
Leonard E. Gibbs Award
The Leonard E. Gibbs Award is given to the authors of a Campbell systematic review that contributes to evidence-informed practice in social welfare. This year, there were two awards: one for a systematic review and one for an evidence and gap map, in recognition of the increasing importance of evidence and gap maps in the evidence architecture.
The author team of “Interventions that address institutional child maltreatment: An evidence and gap map” is Meghan Finch, Rebecca Featherston, Sangita Chakraborty, Ludvig Bjørndal, Robyn Mildon, Bianca Albers, Caroline Fiennes, David J. A. Taylor, Rebecca Schachtman, Taoran Yang and Aron Shlonsky.
The author team of “Voluntary work for the physical and mental health of older volunteers: A systematic review” is Trine Filges, Anu Siren, Torben Fridberg and Bjørn C. V. Nielsen.
Lead author Trine Filges is a senior researcher at The Danish Center for Social Science Research (VIVE) and has published 18 Campbell systematic reviews.
Farah Jamal Award
Brenda Hayanga and Promise Nduku were jointly given the inaugural Farah Jamal Award. The Farah Jamal Award for early career researchers aims to recognise scholarly research that ensures historically marginalised and under-represented voices are heard. Nominations of women and people from low- and middle-income countries (people who have been under-represented in past Campbell awards) are particularly welcome.
The Campbell Technical Advisory Group found that their work spans the diversity of types of scholarship that this award is intended to foster and recognise, in within-country inequities as well as between country inequities.
Brenda Hayanga is a research fellow at the University of Sussex School of Education and Social Work. She has a PhD in Social Policy from the UCL Social Research Institute. In her doctoral research, she used a mixed-methods approach to investigate the effectiveness and suitability of social isolation and loneliness interventions for older people from minoritised ethnic groups living in the UK. Her current project seeks to assess ethnic inequalities in healthcare use and care quality among people with multiple long-term conditions.
Promise Nduku is a researcher at the Africa Centre for Evidence, where he coordinates a team of reviewers on multiple evidence syntheses. He has a MA in development economics from University of Johannesburg. Promise is an ardent supporter of embracing sustainable development, inclusive growth in particular, as an effective tool for poverty and inequality reduction.
Frederick Mosteller Award
Ariel Aloe was awarded the 2021 Frederick Mosteller Award for distinctive contributions to the theory, method or practice of systematic reviewing.
Ariel is Co-chair and Editor of the Campbell Methods Coordinating Group. He has a PhD in Measurement and Statistics from Florida State University, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Educational Measurement and Statistics programme at the University of Iowa College of Education. His research focuses on the development and evaluation of evidence synthesis methods, and he has conducted both primary and secondary synthesis studies in education and psychology topics.
John Westbrook Award
The 2021 John Westbrook Award for Contributions to Knowledge Translation goes to Robyn Mildon, who co-founded the Knowledge Translation and Implementation CG and served as its Co-chair until 2020.
The John Westbrook Award recognises her significant contribution to using knowledge translation and implementation science to make research syntheses more relevant and useful for policy and practice. An internationally recognised figure in the field of implementation science, evidence synthesis and knowledge translation, and programme and policy evaluations in health, education and human services, Robyn has made outstanding contributions to advance the mission and work of the Campbell Collaboration.
Click here to read more about the Campbell awards and previous winners.