Alumni News

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to honor Rebecca Ullrich, MA Psychology '15, with the 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award in psychology. Ullrich currently serves at the assistant superintendent of early childhood access, enrollment, and policy at the Virginia Department of Education.

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to honor Steven Zhou, PhD Psychology '24, CERG Computational Social Science '24, with the 2026 CHSS G.O.L.D. - Graduate of the Last Decade award. Zhou is an assistant professor of psychological science at Claremont McKenna College. 

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to honor Raj Ratwani, MA Psychology '04, PhD '08, with the Distinguished Alumni Award in psychology. Ratwani is vice president of scientific affairs at the MedStar Health Research Institute, director of the MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, and professor of emergency medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to honor Karin Orvis, MA Psychology '01, PhD '07, with the 2025 CHSS alumni service award. Orvis has served in senior executive-level roles across the U.S. Federal Government, strategically leading multidisciplinary, interagency teams in designing, implementing, and evaluating enterprise-wide policies and programs.

Each year, the George Mason University Alumni Association celebrates the achievements of alumni at the annual Celebration of Distinction awards program. The Alumni Association recognizes five alumni for their outstanding professional achievements and service to the university, and honors the achievements of alumni from each school, college, and affinity chapter.  

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to honor Jeff Williams, MA Psychology '93, with the 2024 Distinguished Alumni award in psychology. Williams is committed to improving the security of the software for the world. He has founded and led three highly successful organizations to help solve the problem. Williams is currently the chief technology officer at Contrast Security.

The researchers included several people from George Mason University (GMU) who teamed up with Dartmouth and HP, and received funding from the Swedish and Dutch governments, says Dr. Daniel Shore, chief research officer at Leadership & Effective Teamwork Strategies (LETS), who worked on the study while he was at GMU.

Strickland graduated with a B.A. in psychology at George Mason University in 1998 and received an M.S. in the foundation of education at Troy University in 1999. She played three years at George Mason University, where she played a crucial role in their back-to-back NCAA appearances in 1996 and 1997, reaching the Sweet 16 in 1997.

Industrial Organizational Student Elisa Torres, Graduates Dr. Samantha Dubrow and Dr. David Wallace, and Professor Dr. Steven Zaccaro have published a study about goal-directed action in networks of closely collaborating teams.

Indira Kaur Ahluwalia (BA '90) has released a memoir sharing her journey following a stage IV Cancer diagnosis, "Fast Forward to Hope."