HumRRO Manager of Creative Services Gavan O’Shea, Ph.D., joined a distinguished group last week when he was inducted as a Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Fellow at its Annual Conference in Seattle.
SIOP’s prestigious, lifetime honor recognizes a select few recipients each year whose contributions have had meaningful, sustained, and unusual impact on the field of I-O psychology. Nominees for SIOP Fellow must have a full decade of professional experience, with selection based on research, practitioner accomplishments, service, and other criteria.
“Fellow status is not simply based on adding up how many criteria are represented in a nominee’s curriculum vitae,” according to the SIOP Fellowship Committee. “Rather, Fellow status specifically recognizes unusual and outstanding contributions that have an important impact on I-O psychology. The Fellowship is a significant honor, highly valued by all members of SIOP.”
O’Shea describes his career in nonprofit organizations as an “I-O generalist,” offering customized solutions “from the ground up” to suit a client’s unique needs. He is drawn to applied research projects with the potential to improve public policy and organizational practice regardless of their specific topical focus.
“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition,” said O’Shea. “If I could name one passion that animates me the most professionally, it would be communicating to and with policymakers, professionals from other backgrounds, and the public about what I-O psychology is and all it can contribute not only to making organizations more effective, fair, and inclusive, but to helping employees find growth, learning, and fulfillment through their work.”
O’Shea, who presented at the 2022 SIOP Conference on leadership development, has had the most sustained impact on leadership scholarship and practice. He served as the technical lead on a global practice analysis and Core Competency Model update for the International Coaching Federation and helped the U.S. Secret Service create a leadership development framework. He was technical lead on a project for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to develop a 360-degree feedback assessment for the community’s leaders. O’Shea also led the development and implementation of assessment tools to assess leaders in a variety of high stakes settings.
Along with his innovative work and exceeding our clients’ expectations, what’s equally impressive about Gavan is his desire to advance the I-O profession through his volunteer contributions. Gavan epitomizes HumRRO’s service-oriented mission, and we couldn’t be prouder of him for receiving this extraordinary recognition.
— David Dorsey, Ph.D., vice president of business development at HumRRO.
O’Shea is currently serving as an elected member of SIOP’s Executive Board as one of SIOP’s four representatives to the APA’s Council of Representatives. He chaired the SIOP Workshop Committee from April 2017 to April 2019. In 2012, O’Shea received the Virginia Tech College of Science Outstanding Recent Graduate Alumni Award. He has authored 35 technical reports, more than 40 conference presentations, multiple invited sessions, and 17 journal articles and book chapters, including two essays in the forthcoming SAGE Encyclopedia of Leadership Studies.
