Robert Pietrzak, PhD, MPH, professor of psychiatry and of public health (social and behavioral sciences), has been selected to receive the 2026 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement.
The award will be presented at the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) Annual Meeting in San Antonio in September.
The Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award honors an individual or group who has made an outstanding contribution to research in traumatic stress. It is named in memory of Robert S. Laufer, PhD, a sociologist whose pioneering work on Vietnam combat veterans helped shape early understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Laufer’s landmark study, Legacies of Vietnam: Comparative Adjustment of Veterans and Their Peers (1981), documented the broad psychological, social, and economic toll of combat service. Laufer and Elizabeth Brett, PhD, lecturer in psychiatry at Yale, were among the first to conduct rigorous epidemiologic studies of PTSD in Vietnam-era veterans, contributing foundational work on the psychological consequences of combat exposure and the classification of the disorder that helped lay the groundwork for subsequent generations of research.
Recipients of the award are recognized for scientific achievements that advance knowledge in traumatic stress, with emphasis on originality, significance, and impact on the field.
Pietrzak was nominated by John H. Krystal, MD, chair of the Department of Psychiatry.
Pietrzak is director of the Translational Psychiatric Epidemiology Laboratory in the Clinical Neurosciences Division of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). His research focuses on the psychiatric epidemiology of trauma-related disorders, with an emphasis on military veterans, resilience, and recovery.
He leads the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study (NHRVS), a nationally representative longitudinal study of U.S. veterans that began in 2011. The NHRVS has followed thousands of veterans across multiple groups and has generated more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. The study has addressed a wide range of topics, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) risk and resilience, military sexual trauma, suicide risk, aging, social connectedness, moral injury, and post-traumatic growth, and it has used biological data to identify genetic and epigenetic markers of mental health outcomes.
Findings from the NHRVS have appeared in leading journals and have contributed to advances in scientific understanding, clinical care, and health policy affecting veterans.
In addition to the NHRVS, Pietrzak has conducted influential research on trauma and resilience among survivors of the World Trade Center attacks and other large-scale disasters. He has also led population-based studies using national epidemiologic datasets and has contributed to neuroimaging research in PTSD, including molecular imaging studies. His work has further supported the development and validation of widely used cognitive assessment tools. Across these efforts, he has authored more than 700 scientific publications, with over 47,000 citations and an h-index of 111.
Pietrzak trained under and collaborated closely with the late Steven Southwick, MD, professor of psychiatry at Yale and a founding figure in the scientific study of trauma and resilience. He noted that he accepts this award in honor of Dr. Southwick's memory and enduring influence on his work.
Reflecting on his mentor, Pietrzak said, “Steve was not only a brilliant scientist who fundamentally shaped our understanding of trauma and resilience, but also a deeply compassionate mentor whose wisdom, kindness, and dedication continue to guide my work every day. His legacy lives on in every study that seeks to understand how people adapt, endure, and grow in the face of trauma.”