Matthew Price, PhD, a leading expert in traumatic stress, has been invested as the inaugural George W. Albee Green & Gold Professor of Psychological Science at the University of Vermont (UVM). The professorship was established by Jean Rhodes ’83 and her husband Dane Wittrup in memory of the late UVM professor George Albee. The fund honors and continues Albee’s legacy of research and scholarship committed to social justice, psychopathology prevention, and expansion of mental health care to marginalized populations. UVM leadership and special guests, including Rhodes, Wittrup, and members of the Albee family, gathered on campus in the Old Mill Building’s John Dewey Lounge for the formal ceremony on October 29, 2021.
George Albee was a world-renowned pioneer in the field of community psychology. He was an outspoken advocate of the belief that most mental illness is determined by pernicious social conditions—like poverty, racism, sexism, and homophobia—rather than biochemical defects in the brain. He believed that clinical interventions alone were inadequate and that social change, early intervention, and prevention were crucial factors in curtailing mental illness. He brought his family to Vermont 50 years ago, in the fall of 1971, and served as a distinguished faculty member in the Department of Psychological Science until 1992.
Albee’s many career accomplishments included serving as president of the American Psychological Association, serving as a member of the mental health commissions of presidents Eisenhower and Carter, and founding the Vermont Conference on the Primary Prevention of Psychopathology. Off campus, he had a reputation as the eccentric “Farmer George” and was known to cart livestock around in the back seat of an authentic New York City checkered taxi cab. Three of his four children graduated from UVM, as did his granddaughter.
“Our family has had representation here for a long time,” said George’s son, Luke ’81, MS’82. “This new endowed professorship is an unexpected and wonderful way for our dad’s legacy to continue to be connected to future generations of psychology students. We will be forever proud of our father and his continuing connections to UVM.”
Jean Rhodes calls it “blind luck” that she landed in Albee’s introductory psychology class as a freshman at UVM in 1979. She says his take on modern psychology was a radical departure from what was being taught in introductory courses around the country. Rhodes also became fast friends with Albee’s daughter Marina ’83, who happened to live in the same dorm. Before graduation the two moved off campus to live at the small Albee farm, where Rhodes tended a flock of chickens in exchange for room and board. Rhodes took every course that Albee had to offer and enthusiastically volunteered to staff his annual Vermont Conference on the Primary Prevention of Psychopathology.
Through Albee’s mentorship, Rhodes says she began to see herself as someone who could make a difference in the world through community psychology. Today she is a devoted educator herself, serving as the Frank L. Boyden Professor of Psychology and the director of the Center for Evidence-based Mentoring at University of Massachusetts Boston. She has dedicated her career to understanding and advancing the role of intergenerational relationships in the intellectual, social, educational, and career development of youth. She and her husband have been supporters of the UVM Department of Psychological Science for more than 15 years. In 2004, Rhodes and Wittrup established the George W. Albee Distinguished Graduate Research in Community Psychology Award, given annually to an outstanding graduate student.
“It’s just such an honor to be able to do something like this, and knowing that Professor Price is going to be doing the work and carrying on the name of my mentor means the world to me,” said Rhodes. “When Professor Price was selected, I looked at his work and it’s just amazing how much it extends the work that George Albee did, but also the work that I’ve been doing. His work is at the nexus of everything I’ve found interesting throughout my career, and it’s just an honor to be part of that.”
“I have deep ties within the Department of Psychological Sciences,” said College of Arts and Sciences Dean William Falls, who served as chair of the department before becoming dean. “I can proudly declare that it would not be what it is today without George Albee’s incredible contributions as an educator, researcher, and mentor. Thanks to Jean Rhodes, today’s UVM students are learning from a truly outstanding scholar in Dr. Price, whose teaching and research enhance our University community every day.”
Since joining the UVM faculty in 2013, Matthew Price has had a meteoric career that includes receiving over $1.2 million dollars in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, the American Psychological Association, and local foundations. His research carries forward George Albee’s commitment to equity, prevention, and social justice in delivering mental health care to underserved populations.
The goal of Price’s work is to develop interventions for underserved populations that are disproportionately at risk for chronic psychopathology after a traumatic event. He is at the forefront of using technology-based clinical interventions, including telehealth, web-based interventions, mobile health applications, remote sensors, and virtual reality. His transdisciplinary approach—he routinely partners with engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians—combined with his sophisticated use of statistics and quantitative measures, places him at the cutting edge of research in his field. He has published extensively in high-impact journals, and his contributions have been valuable in moving the field forward.
“We are working on building digital tools that can help connect trauma victims with needed resources and provide them with new tools to prevent their symptoms from becoming unmanageable. In essence, helping them build a local community to help them with their trauma. The support provided by this professorship has allowed several collaborations to begin and will help to sustain them in the future,” said Price. “Without this support, this work could not have happened. Thank you for this honor and for the support to continue to help those in need.”
Fundraising for the UVM College of Arts and Sciences is a major focus for the University of Vermont Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established to secure and manage private support for the benefit of the University of Vermont. To inquire about making a gift to the College, contact George Rutherford at George.Rutherford@uvm.edu. More information about the impact of donors like Jean Rhodes and Dane Wittrup and the work of the UVM Foundation can be found at www.uvmfoundation.org.