Three APA early career awards

Brian Tae Hyuk Keum, the Buehler Sesquicentennial Assistant Professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, has been honored with three notable early career awards from the American Psychological Association.  

Keum, who joined the Lynch School Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology faculty this past summer, was recognized with the Distinguished Early Career Professional Contributions to Media Psychology and Technology Award by Division 46, the APA’s Society for Media Psychology and Technology, which acknowledges outstanding contributions to the field during the professional’s first decade after earning a doctorate.  

Division 45, the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race, bestowed the Emerging Professional–Contributions to Research Award on Keum for his outstanding research contributions in the promotion of ethnic minority issues. The society is the major representative body for psychologists who conduct research on ethnic minority concerns or who apply psychological knowledge and techniques to ethnic minority issues.

In addition, Keum, who earned a doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Maryland-College Park, was presented with the Fritz & Linn Kuder Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Counseling Psychology by APA Division 17, the Society for Counseling Psychology.

In 2022, Keum—then an assistant professor at the Luskin School of Public Affairs in the Department of Social Welfare at UCLA, where he worked for three years—was the recipient of the Rising Star Award by the APA-hosted National Multicultural Conference Summit, which honors the efforts and contributions of early career psychologists in multicultural research, teaching, advocacy, policy and/or clinical care.

Keum’s research focuses on mental and behavioral costs of online oppression; intersectional perspectives in mental health and socialization among Asian Americans; multicultural and social justice issues in clinical training, and culturally congruent and culturally relevant psychological measure development/evaluation; and promotion of cross-racial anti-racism solidarity. In these areas, he has published 70 peer-reviewed articles and delivered over 80 refereed presentations. He has received more than $1 million in external funding to support his research.

Keum also heads the Lynch School’s Digital Equity & Anti-Oppression Lab, which studies health and mental health disparities among marginalized individuals and communities using intersectional, contemporary, and digitally relevant approaches.

“We are thrilled that Brian Keum has joined our faculty,” said Stanton E.F. Wortham, the Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean of the Lynch School. “His work on race, justice, and virtual environments addresses critical issues in contemporary society, and exemplifies the mission of the Lynch School and our counseling program. It’s wonderful and impressive to see that his outstanding work has been recognized by several different units of the major professional association in his discipline.”