Dan Mroczek, PhD, Receives Jack Block Award for Contributions to Personality and Developmental Science

Dan Mroczek stands against a background of yellow flowers

The Department of Medical Social Sciences congratulates Dan Mroczek, PhD, on receiving the Jack Block Award, recognizing his distinguished contributions to personality and developmental psychology and his work integrating innovative quantitative methods across these fields from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Established in honor of renowned psychologist Jack Block, the award recognizes research that embodies Block’s transdisciplinary approach to understanding personality and human development. Block, a prominent psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, made major contributions across clinical psychology, personality psychology, developmental psychology and quantitative methods. The award has been presented for approximately 25 years.

For Mroczek, the recognition carries particular personal and intellectual significance. His doctoral advisor, Dan Ozer, was a student of Block at Berkeley, placing Mroczek in a direct academic lineage with the scholar whose name the award bears. Mroczek described Block as one of his “intellectual grandfathers,” noting that his own research has been shaped by the same integration of personality, developmental psychology and quantitative methods that characterized Block’s work.

“I would probably not have done that if I was not mentored by Dan Ozer, who, in turn, was mentored by Jack Block,” Mroczek said, reflecting on the influence of that mentorship lineage.

That transdisciplinary perspective has been a defining feature of Mroczek’s research career. Over approximately three decades, his work has brought together personality and developmental science with sophisticated quantitative approaches—an alignment that closely reflects the spirit of the Jack Block Award.

The award also marks a particularly notable period of recognition in Mroczek’s career. In the past 15 months, he has received three major honors: the Martica Hall Mentoring Award from the Academy of Behavioral Medicine, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Association of Personality Psychology, and now the Jack Block Award.

Mroczek credits the mentors and colleagues who have supported his work throughout his career. He specifically highlighted the influence of Ozer and the research community he has built with colleagues in the Department of Medical Social Sciences, including Eileen Graham, PhD, Jing Luo, PhD, Karina Van Bogart, PhD, Katherina Hauner, PhD, and Madison Smith, PhD. He also expressed appreciation for Department Chair Rinad Beidas, PhD, and the supportive research environment within MSS.

The Department of Medical Social Sciences is proud to celebrate Mroczek’s receipt of this prestigious honor and the decades of scholarship, mentorship and interdisciplinary research it represents.

Congratulations, Dan!