Past President

Patrick R. Grzanka, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and the inaugural Divisional Dean for Social Sciences at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. As an applied social issues researcher, Grzanka’s interdisciplinary work explores the ways complex ways that social institutions such as health care, science, law, and education (re)produce harm at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. With co-author and former SPSSI President Elizabeth R. Cole, he is the 2021 co-recipient of the 2023 APA Division 1 George A. Miller Award for Outstanding Recent Article in General Psychology for their 2021 American Psychologist paper “An Argument for Bad Psychology.” He is also the 2018 recipient of the Michele Alexander Early Career Award from SPSSI and is a Fellow of SPSSI, as well as APA Divisions 17 (Society for Counseling Psychology), 35 (Society for the Psychology of Women), and 44 (Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity). He has co-edited special issues of American Psychologist, Journal of Counseling Psychology, Translational Issues in Psychological Science, and Sexuality Research and Social Policy. His current book project (under contract with Cambridge University Press) traces the “born this way” wars—fierce debates about the etiology of sexual orientation—in science, law, and the lives of sexual and gender minorities. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation as well as several grants from SPSSI for community- and policy-based research. He is active in various social movement organizations in Tennessee and currently serves as chair of the Board of Directors of Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood. Terminally undisciplined, he holds a Ph.D. in American studies and B.A. in journalism, both from the University of Maryland.