Hiram E. Fitzgerald is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and former Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement.

 

Dr. Fitzgerald's tireless dedication to community-engaged scholarship has advanced the University’s reputation as a national and international leader in the scholarship of engagement. His major areas of funded research include the study of infant and family development in community contexts, the impact of fathers on early child development, implementation of systemic community models of organizational process and change, the etiology of alcoholism, the digital divide and youth use of technologies, and the scholarship of engagement. He has published over 237 peer-reviewed journal articles, 96 chapters, 77 books, 147 peer-revised abstracts and 19 technical reports, and served as editor-in-chief of the Infant Mental Health Journal and associate editor of Child Development, the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, and Perspectives on Infant Mental Health. Currently, he is associate editor of Adversity and Resilience Science.

 

He is an active member of the Tribal Early Childhood Research Center and the Native Children’s Research Exchange at the University of Colorado, Denver, and a member of several interdisciplinary research teams focusing on evaluation of community-based early preventive-intervention programs in Michigan and nationally. He also serves on the National Advisory Board of the Buffet Childhood Research Centre at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, chairs the External Advisory Board for Oklahoma State University’s Centre for Integrative Research on Childhood Adversity, and is scientific advisor to the Rocky Mountain Prevention Research Center’s CDC Prevention Research Center.

 

He is past president and executive director of both the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health and the International Association for Infant Mental Health, and for 16 years served as executive director of the World Association for Infant Mental Health.

 

As associate provost, Fitzgerald’s vision, energy, and creativity shaped what has become one of the most respected offices of academic support for university-community collaboration in the country. He has served as president of the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, and the Executive Committee of the Council on Engagement and Outreach of the Association for Public and Land Grant Universities. He is an elected member of the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship and of the International Association of Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.

 

He has received numerous awards, including the ZERO TO THREE Dolley Madison Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to the Development and Well Being of Very Young Children, the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health Selma Fraiberg Award, and the Michigan Campus Compact Lifetime Achievement Award, and is one of five recipients of the World Association for Infant Mental Health’s Honorary President designation. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association of Psychological Science.

 

Two scholarly societies have named awards in Dr. Fitzgerald’s honor. The Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health’s Hiram Fitzgerald Award is given to an emerging scholar/researcher who is committed to strengthening relationships between infants, young children, and their families. The first MI-AIMH Fitzgerald Award was presented in 2011. The Engagement Scholarship Consortium’s inaugural Hiram Fitzgerald Distinguished Engaged Scholar Award was presented in 2019.