The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) is proud to recognize James Kale Monk as the 2016 recipient of the NCFR Student Award, which is given to an NCFR graduate student member who has demonstrated excellence as a student and shows great potential for contributing to Family Science.

Mr. Monk is a doctoral student in human development and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After receiving undergraduate degrees in psychology and family studies, he earned his master's in marriage and family therapy from Kansas State University. He is a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE), and was the 2015 recipient of NCFR's Feldman Outstanding Research Proposal for Research in Family Policy award.

In his letter nominating Mr. Monk, Dr. Brian G. Ogolsky writes: "During his nearly three years on campus, Kale has produced a body of work that is unparalleled by his peers. In fact, his output is on par with highly productive assistant professors on campus. To date, he has published a total of eleven papers in outstanding peer-reviewed journals, on three of which he was the lead author."

Mr. Monk will be recognized for his achievements at the 2016 NCFR Annual Conference, Nov. 2-5 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The National Council on Family Relations is the premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of more than 3,000 family researchers, practitioners and educators. For more information on the National Council on Family Relations or its scholarly publications, visit the NCFR website at ncfr.org.