Dennis Drotar Distinguished Research Award
The Dennis Drotar Distinguished Research Award was given to Cynthia Gerhardt, Ph.D. This award recognizes excellence and significant contributions in establishing the scientific base of pediatric psychology. Gerhardt is an associate professor of Pediatrics and Psychology at The Ohio State University, director of the Center for Biobehavioral Health, and co-director for the Patient-Centered Pediatric Research Fellowship at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Her work focuses on identifying risk and resilience factors associated with family adjustment to childhood chronic illnesses, particularly cancer. Current efforts involve international collaborations aimed at understanding trajectories of symptom burden and decision making at the end of a child’s life, fertility, and psychosexual development in survivorship, interventions to improve family coping and communication, as well as the evaluation of innovative healthcare and community-based programming to improve outcomes for providers and families. She has published 100 papers and book chapters, received multiple grants from the NIH and American Cancer Society, contributed to psychosocial care international standards development for children with cancer and their families, and mentored students and trainees in her lab for almost 20 years.