AN AWARD-WINNING professor from Cardross has added another feather to his professional cap after receiving the highest honour his discipline can offer.
Professor Tommy MacKay, who lives in Ardoch House, was announced as one of two winners of The British Psychological Society’s (BPS) 2020 lifetime achievement award in psychology last month.
Recognised as one of the UK’s leading psychologists, Professor MacKay, 75, specialises in educational and child psychology, among other fields, and he featured in the Advertiser’s Looking Back section just last week, exactly 15 years on from his groundbreaking work to eradicate illiteracy in West Dunbartonshire schools.
He is also an expert witness, covering child and adult cases, both civil and criminal, and he is a co-founder of the National Centre for Autism Studies at the University of Strathclyde. He is currently a director of Psychology Consultancy Services.
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After receiving his award from the BPS - which has over 60,000 members - Mr MacKay, who is a past president of the society, said: “I am honoured and humbled to have received this award and I see it as a welcome stepping stone as I pursue new ventures in my career.
“At the present time it is difficult for me to think of any higher honour I could receive in my profession than the lifetime achievement award.”
Professor MacKay has around 250 publications in psychology, and his extensive list of honours includes fellowship of the BPS for “an outstanding and original contribution to psychology”, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow for his “significant contribution to educational psychology in Scotland”.
He was invited to be the 2018 Vernon Wall lecturer at Oxford University and his resulting monograph ‘Can the psychology of education enhance social wellbeing? A national vision for intergenerational change’ was published in November 2019.
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His research on raising educational achievement, the subject of his second doctorate, won a business excellence award for innovation and new applications and is the subject of a publication by the Centre for Policy Studies, ‘A World First for West Dunbartonshire: The elimination of reading failure’.
His work also contributed to the setting up of Scotland’s National Literacy Commission, and its report, endorsed by all political parties in Scotland, set out a vision to make the country the first nation in the world to eradicate illiteracy.
He has carried out much of his work based at Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh, working with the local psychological service.
His achievements are also the subject of a chapter in Britain’s Everyday Heroes, by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has described him as a “visionary and an inspiration”, as having a “lifelong alignment with the poor and the disadvantaged” and as being driven by “an absolute refusal to accept that anything was impossible”.
And Professor MacKay has no plans to slow down just yet, as he told the Advertiser he is keen to develop an international online teaching and training programme in autism spectrum disorders.
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