Rate My Professor Philip Ackerman

Phillip Ackerman is a Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. in Quantitative/Measurement Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984. As co-director of the PARK Lab with Ruth Kanfer, Ackerman's research spans differential, educational, cognitive, applied experimental, and industrial and organizational psychology. His investigations focus on human intelligence, abilities and testing, skill acquisition and retention, cognitive aging, and linkages among cognitive, affective, and conative traits for educational and occupational selection. Recent work addresses ability, motivation, personality, interest, and self-concept determinants of skilled performance and training success, alongside lifespan development of intellectual competence. Current projects examine age and gender differences in adult knowledge breadth and depth, the taxonomic nature of perceptual speed abilities in skilled performance, and physiological correlates of cognitive effort and fatigue.

Ackerman has authored numerous influential publications, including 'Motivation and cognitive abilities: An integrative/aptitude-treatment interaction approach to skill acquisition' (1989), 'Intelligence, personality, and interests: evidence for overlapping traits' (1997), 'Aging, adult development, and work motivation' (2004), 'Trait complex, cognitive ability, and domain knowledge predictors of baccalaureate success, STEM persistence, and gender differences' (2013, with Kanfer and Beier), and 'Investment and intelligence: A review and meta-analysis' (2013, with von Stumm). He served as editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied and edited or co-edited four books on individual differences, such as Cognitive Fatigue: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Current Research and Future Applications (2011). An elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Psychonomic Society, Human Factors & Ergonomics Society, American Educational Research Association, and Charter Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, Ackerman has received the APA Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology (applied research/psychometrics), the Franklin V. Taylor Award for Outstanding Contributions in Applied Experimental/Engineering Psychology, the 2024 SIOP Dunnette Prize (with Kanfer) for transformative research on individual differences influencing workplace learning and performance, the 2019 APA Master Lecturer award in Personality and Individual Differences, and the 2019 Julius E. Uhlaner Award for the Knowledge and Skill Lab's contributions to military selection and recruitment tools for unmanned aircraft systems personnel. In 2019, his lab received an Army Research Institute grant to develop new measures of adult intellectual abilities and trait complexes for performance prediction. His integrative approach has advanced personnel selection, adult learning, and workforce sustainability.