Early Career Award

The ARP Early Career Award, established in 2017, is presented biennially to recognize exceptional early career accomplishments in personality research. To be eligible for the award a nominee must be between 5 and 10 years post-Ph.D. and have an exemplary record of research in personality. This award has been generously endowed by Richard W. Robins and Oliver P. John.

From Rick Robins and Oliver John:

“We are delighted to support the Association for Research in Personality (ARP). We have been involved with ARP since its inception and have watched it grow into the most influential society for the study of personality. Through its various initiatives, ARP has promoted the scientific study of personality, disseminated knowledge about the field, and facilitated the careers of countless students and early-career researchers.

We are excited and honored to fund an endowment for ARP’s Early Career Award, which recognizes the most outstanding young scientists in our field. We have chosen to fund this award because we view teaching, mentoring, and supporting the next generation of researchers as one of the most important contributions we can make to the field. We are immensely proud of the students we have mentored and who are now mentoring students of their own. We hope that our gift will help recognize and advance the careers of many future generations of personality researchers in the years to come.”

2025 Early Career Award Announcement

Michal Kosinski is the winner of the Association for Research in Personality’s Early Career Award for 2025. Dr. Kosinski received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is currently an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He is one of the leading personality psychologists working in the area of personality assessment in digital environments. His research has shown that people leave traces of their personality online in the form of web browsing, likes, and online language use, and that using digital data to assess personality can have advantages such as limiting reference group effects, but also comes with significant risks for individuals and society.

Dr. Kosinski will be giving a talk at the next ARP conference to celebrate this award. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination for this year’s award. Thank you also to the ARP Early Career Award selection committee: Rick Robins (Chair), William Chopik, and Amber Gayle Thalmayer (2023 ARP Early Career Award winner).

2023 Early Career Award Winner is Dr. Amber Gayle Thalmayer

ARP is happy to announce that Amber Gayle Thalmayer is the winner of the Association for Research in Personality’s Early Career Award for 2023. Dr. Thalmayer received her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 2013 and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Zürich. She is one of the leading personality psychologists working to make the field more internationally representative. In particular, her lexical studies of personality in multiple African languages (Khoekhoegowab, Maa and Supyire-Senufo) have broken new ground in our understanding of cross-cultural differences in personality structure. Dr. Thalmayer has utilized emic (indigenous, bottom-up) approaches, built and empowered global collaborative networks of scholars, and has included community members as researchers. Her work is at the forefront of personality psychology’s quest to become a truly representative and global science. Given these achievements, it is not surprising that her research has attracted substantial grant funding. She also serves as Associate Editor at Personality and Social Psychology Review. Congrats, Amber!

List of Award Winners

2023 Amber Gayle
2021 William J. Chopik
2019 Aidan Wright
2017 Wiebke Bleidorn