Outstanding Achievement in a Chosen Profession
The Outstanding Achievement in a Chosen Profession award is presented annually to a member of the alumni community whose professional accomplishments and achievements are exceptionally noteworthy and distinctive in his or her profession.
2025 Recipient
Susan McHale '75
Susan McHale '75 is a developmental psychologist whose teaching and research has focused on bio-psycho-social processes in human behavior, health and development across the lifespan — interests that were sparked by her experiences as a psychology major at Bucknell. After graduating from Bucknell in 1975, she completed a PhD in Developmental Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1979 and joined the faculty at Penn State University in 1980.
McHale has had a particular interest in youth development from childhood through young adulthood, and has also studied the health and development of parents in mid-life. Over her more than 40 years as a faculty member at Penn State, her research and teaching highlighted the effects of family experiences on youth and parents, particularly children's and parents' family roles, relationships, and daily activities and how these family dynamics are linked to psychological and physical health and development. Susan’s work was also aimed at illuminating diversity in the socio-cultural contexts of family dynamics, including how cultural values and practices have implications for family life and well-being in Mexican-origin and African American families.
In addition to her research and teaching, Susan served for the last 14 years of her tenure at Penn State as director of the University's Social Science Research Institute (SSRI), one of five cross-university research institutes in the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research. She retired in 2022.