Pam Maras was elected as the first female President of IUPsyS in 2016 and took up the role in 2018. She is a Fellow, Past President, and Past Honorary General Secretary of the British Psychological Society and a Chartered Scientist (CSci) with the UK Science Council.
Professor Maras is Emeritus Professor of Social and Educational Psychology at the University of Greenwich, London and where she held a number of senior University roles.
Pam received the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues of the American Psychological Association (SPSSI) Social Issues Dissertation Annual Prize for outstanding academic achievement in a PhD in 1994. Her research interests are in social cognition, social identity, group processes and intergroup relations, attribution, and individual differences. Pam has attracted considerable personal research funding and has international research collaborations, including in Africa, Australasia, China, Europe (including France, Nederland, Spain, and Italy), the Nordic countries, North and Latin America, and South-East Asia. Pam is often asked to comment in the media and has provided evidence to the UK House of Commons Select Committees as well as at policy level to UK Government Departments, local authorities, schools, and charities.
As well as experimental research Pam has an interest in applying science to social situations including in the context of education. She is particularly interested in children and young people’s pro-and anti-social behaviour, aspirations, identity, affect, motivation, and self-concept and the international relevance and appropriateness of measures mainly developed in the northern hemisphere to other countries and regions. In the same vein, Pam is committed to the need to ensure that all regions of the world are able to engage in the ‘open science movement’ as both contributors as well as recipients, including and in particular the need for social sciences to be an equal partner in the international science arena. Pam is actively committed to Gender Equality in Science and represents IUPsyS on the Standing Committee on Gender Equality in Science (SCGES).
As well as her strong scientific record, Pam has international leadership experience in international capacity building. Before her election as President-Elect, Professor Maras served two terms of office as an elected member of the IUPsyS Executive Committee, during which time she led and was on the leadership team for international capacity building. This has included work in Africa, Europe, the ASEAN region, the Caribbean, and Latin America, having been involved in activities leading to declarations of regional collaboration in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. This work represents Pam’s strongly held belief in the importance of local involvement in agenda-setting and the important role of the Union in the promotion and dissemination of psychological science and practice for public good.