Shoham Honored Posthumously for Contributions to Family Research

Late APS Board Member Varda Shoham was recognized posthumously as a recipient of the Distinguished Contributions to Family Systems Research Award at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA). Her husband Michael Rohrbaugh, a clinical professor of psychology and psychiatry at George Washington University, shared the award with Shoham.

AFTA is recognized Rohrbaugh and Shoham for “bringing foundational family therapy ideas into the scientific mainstream.”

An influential proponents of clinical psychological science, Shoham served as president of the Academy of Clinical Psychological Science and played a key role in the creation of the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System. For almost two decades, as faculty members at the University of Arizona, she and Rohrbaugh studied the overlap of couple and family relationships with illness, addiction, and behavior problems — work that Rohrbaugh continues at George Washington. During the last years of her life, Shoham advocated for sound scientific policy as a leader at the National Institute of Mental Health.