Stark Receives Early Career Award for Paper

Laura Stark, assistant professor of sociology, received the Burnham Early Career Award from the History of Science Society for her paper, “The Science of Ethics: Deception, The Resilient Self, And the APA Code of Ethics, 1966-1973.” The paper was published in the fall 2010 issue of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.

The History of Science Society’s Forum calls the paper “original and compelling.”

“Stark’s paper offers a fascinating recreation of the process by which the American Psychological Association (APA) arrived at ethical guidelines for human research,” the citation reads. “Expertly taking advantage of little-known archival resources, [she] examines how a special committee was created, how it collected survey responses from thousands of American psychologists during the 1960s, and how it arrived at its recommendations. She convincingly argues that the committee members were influenced in their reading of the survey results by their own experience as researchers.”

The prize was awarded in Montreal in November.

Stark, who joined the faculty in 2009, studies the cultural history of science and moral sensibilities, with a focus on the perspective of the subject in scientific experimentation. She also holds an appointment in Wesleyan’s Program in Science in Society.