Waisman director honored

Marsha Mailick Seltzer, professor of social work and acting director of the Waisman Center, received the 2001 Distinguished Research Award from The Arc of the United States at its annual convention in New Orleans Oct. 19.

Seltzer was honored with research associate Marty Wyngaarden Krauss, associate dean and professor at the Heller School and director of the Starr Center for Mental Retardation at Brandeis University.

The Arc cited their research for its accomplishment in understanding and improving the social status, living conditions, and social supports for people with mental retardation and their families.

Seltzer and Krauss have studied families where there are older parents who have an adult son or daughter with mental retardation who lives at home. From 1988 to 2000, they studied more than 400 families in Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

More recently, Seltzer, Krauss, and School of Social Work professor Jan Greenberg have extended this line of research to families where a son or daughter has schizophrenia or autism.

Seltzer’s research has been funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, and the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation.