The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) is proud to recognize Dr. Raeann R. Hamon as the 2016 recipient of the Felix Berardo Scholarship Award, which is given to an NCFR member whose work has been noted for excellence in mentoring one or more junior colleagues.

Dr. Hamon is a professor of Family Science and gerontology and chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. Dr. Hamon, a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE), earned her Ph.D. and Graduate Certificate in gerontology from Virginia Tech. She teaches family coursework and advises more than 30 undergraduate Family Science students each year, and readily includes many undergraduates within the HDFS program in her research and writing projects. Her research is related to intergenerational relationships, families in later life, Bahamian families, issues related to the discipline of family science, and teaching pedagogy in family science. Dr. Hamon has authored or edited several books, recently co-edited two special collections for the journal Family Science Review, and has published much of her own scholarship of teaching and learning in Family Science.

In her letter nominating Dr. Hamon, Dr. Fabienne Doucet writes: "Raeann is one in a million. I deeply respect her, and if all of her professional qualities and accomplishments were not enough, she also happens to be an incredible human being."

Dr. Hamon will be recognized for her achievements at the 2016 NCFR Annual Conference, Nov. 2-5 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Felix Berardo, the namesake of this award, was a beloved professor at the University of Florida who went beyond expectations in his mentoring of many students who became leaders in the family field.

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.