Howard B. Kaplan Memorial Assistantship

Dr. Howard B Kaplan was a Regents Professor, a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and the Mary Thomas Marshall Professor of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. He received his PhD from New York University in 1958 and devoted his career to the study of social psychology, deviant behavior, social disorganization, and mental health.

He was internationally known and regarded as an expert in the area of deviance, social psychology and especially medical sociology. His reputation is demonstrated by his award of the American Sociological Association’s Leo G. Reeder Award for a career of distinguished contributions to medical sociology, the highest award that can be given in the area. This award honored his more than 50 years of research that made an indelible impact on the field of medical sociology as well as deviant behavior and social psychology.

Dr. Kaplan joined the Texas A&M Sociology Department in 1988 (coming from the Baylor School of Medicine in Houston) and established the Laboratory for Studies of Social Deviance (now the Howard B. Kaplan Laboratory for Social Science Research). In addition to directing a myriad of ongoing grants and associated studies, and mentoring graduate students, he regularly taught graduate seminars on social psychology and social deviance.

To honor his memory, his family and friends established the Howard B. Kaplan Memorial Assistantship.

The first Howard B. Kaplan Memorial Assistantship was given out in 2012. The assistantship honors the research legacy of Howard Kaplan, and is intended to support a sociology doctoral student for the research and writing of his or her dissertation.

All applicants will be considered, but preference will be given to those students using Dr. Kaplan’s theoretical approach and/or his unique data set.

Please send an updated curriculum vitae and a one-page statement of the dissertation project by April 15th. Applications should be addressed to the Howard B. Kaplan Memorial Scholarship, and emailed to Marisa Winking (mkwinking@tamu.edu). A departmental committee will choose the recipient.