NYC Gazette

Charles Swencionis, a professor of psychology at Yeshiva University's Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, has been awarded the 2024 Cynthia D. Belar Award for Excellence in Health Psychology Education and Training by the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 38 (Society for Health Psychology). This award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the education and training of students in health psychology, focusing on innovative teaching, mentorship, and curriculum development.

The award highlights Dr. Swencionis's substantial impact on the field through his leadership in developing a productive Ph.D. training program for health psychologists, his dedication to advancing the profession, and his ability to communicate influential research about the health psychology of obesity to the public.

Dr. Swencionis held a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Fellowship during his graduate studies at Stanford University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1978. He received the Milton Rosenbaum Award for Basic Research in Psychiatry during his postdoctoral training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine before becoming a founding faculty member of YU’s Health Psychology Ph.D. program in the early 1980s.

Reflecting on the program’s beginnings, Dr. Swencionis noted that “Yeshiva University was at the forefront in offering a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a health emphasis. In 1979, Dr. Ephraim Friedman, then Dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, asked his colleague Dr. Gilbert Levin what could be done to broaden opportunities for advanced psychology research and education on campus. Gil invited me to join him, and together we co-founded the Ph.D. program, one of the first in the nation specifically dedicated to health psychology." The program has since produced many health psychologists who have made significant contributions to both practice and research.

In addition to shaping this Ph.D. program, Dr. Swencionis played a crucial role in developing the field of health psychology itself. From 1981 to 1985, he served on the first editorial board for Health Psychology, an APA-published peer-reviewed journal that focuses on psychological, behavioral, and biological factors in health and illness.

In 1983, he helped organize the Arden House conference on Education and Training in Health Psychology sponsored by APA which was pivotal in advancing formalized training within this emerging discipline.

Dr. Swencionis is also an accomplished author with five books to his name including "The Healing Brain: A Scientific Reader," "Sourcebook for National Working Conference on Education and Training in Health Psychology," "The Lazy Person's Guide to Fitness," "Battle for the Mind," and "The Complete Weight Loss Workbook," which won an American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award in 1998.

Having served as a professor at Ferkauf for over four decades, Dr. Swencionis has also held faculty positions at Einstein since 1981 with appointments spanning epidemiology and population health as well as psychiatry and behavioral sciences.