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Awards & Honors

BU Researcher Honored for Excellence in Military and Veteran Families Research

Established in 2015, the award honors excellence in research on military and veteran families. Its goals are to elevate visibility of key issues, strengthen connections between researchers and practitioners, and increase the impact of rigorous evidence on programs, policies and practices. It is named in honor of Barbara Thompson, who served military and veteran families for more than 30 years.

Taft, who also is an internationally recognized psychologist at the National Center for PTSD in the VA Boston Healthcare System, received this honor at the Thompson Forum annual event hosted by the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University that spotlights research on military and veteran families. His paper was selected as the winner out of more than 800 papers reviewed. 

Intimate partner violence (IPV), specifically physical and psychological aggression toward an intimate partner, represents a public health crisis that affects millions of Americans each year. It contributes to a range of mental and physical health conditions in survivors. Children exposed to IPV are at an increased risk for psychological, social, emotional and behavioral problems, and are also more likely to engage in intimate partner violence later in life. 

Taft has served as principal investigator on funded grants focusing on understanding and preventing partner violence through the National Institute of Mental Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Defense, the Blue Shield Foundation of California, the Bob Woodruff Foundation and the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. He was the primary developer of the Strength at Home programs to prevent intimate partner violence, with current grants to implement the program within civilian, military, and Veteran settings. 

Taft was the 2009 Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner Violence Researcher Award winner from the Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma. He is on the editorial boards of five journals and has published over 150 peer-reviewed academic articles. He has chaired an American Psychological Association task force on trauma in the military, consulted with the United Nations on preventing violence and abuse globally and testified before the US Congress on preventing intimate partner violence in the military.