The Dr. David Lawless Award for Scholarly Achievement is awarded to a member of the full-time faculty at St. Mary's University in recognition of major scholarly achievements such as research published in peer-adjudicated articles, monographs or books accepted by established publishers; or major submissions to national granting councils.
With a PhD in Social-Personality Psychology from Queen's University, Dr. Ron Porter has a wealth of expertise in attitude measurement, psychometrics, exploratory factor analysis, personnel selection, and social influence. Most recently, Dr. Porter's interest in indirect implicit attitude measurement netted a prestigious Insight-Development grant ($55,000) from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). His studies aim to enable organizations to identify employees' attitudes towards socially sensitive topics, allowing said organizations to develop and maintain a more positive work climate. Dr. Porter's research and grant helped to establish an experimental psychology research laboratory at StMU. This psych lab' officially opened for research in January 2020 and incorporates traditional two-way mirrors and an observation room, as well as state-of-the- art audio and visual capture cameras, computers, and software.
