Professor Randall Engle Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Randall W. Engle, professor in the School of Psychology, has received the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Intelligence Research (ISIR). This award, the Society’s highest honor, recognizes individuals who have made substantial, lifelong contributions to the scientific understanding of human intelligence. In recognition of this distinction, Engle has been invited to deliver a plenary address at the 2026 ISIR Annual Conference.

“This is a great honor from the premier society in the world for the study of human intelligence,” he says. 

Engle’s research centers on the nature of our ability to maintain attention and focus in the face of external and internal distractions. His pioneering work has influenced a wide range of fields — including social psychology, emotion, psychopathology, developmental psychology, and psychological testing — and has contributed to modern theories of cognitive and emotional control. Tests developed in Engle’s lab will soon be used to select pilots and air traffic controllers for the U.S. Navy. These assessments evaluate one’s ability to focus attention and avoid distraction while problem solving. 

He obtained his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from The Ohio State University and joined Georgia Tech in 1995 as chair of the School of Psychology. Engle stepped down from that role in 2008 to establish the Georgia State University/Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Brain Imaging, where he served as director for four years. 

Throughout his career, Engle has received numerous awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society of Experimental Psychologists, Memory Disorders Research Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He served as editor of Current Directions in Psychological Science for more than 10 years and has been on the editorial board of several other journals.