Murray Webster, professor of sociology, is the 2015 winner of the Cooley-Mead Award from the American Sociological Association’s Social Psychology Section.
The Cooley-Mead Award, established in 1978, is given annually to an individual who has made lifetime contributions to distinguished scholarship in sociological social psychology. In addition to receiving the award, the recipient presents an address to the Social Psychology Section at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in August. The award is the top honor presented by the section.
In naming Webster the 2015 award recipient, the Cooley-Mead selection committee noted that “in his distinguished career of nearly 50 years, Murray has been a leader in developing expectation states theory, identifying the processes by which status characteristics (especially diffuse status characteristics [e.g., beauty]) shape and organize social interaction and promoting rigorous, state-of-the art experimental scholarship.
According to one nominator, the UNC Charlotte sociology professor has been “an unsung hero when it comes to developing the talents of young scholars.”
Webster will deliver the Cooley-Mead address at the ASA meetings in Chicago.