OccHealthSci faculty named inaugural fellows of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology

In an exciting new milestone in the field of Occupational Health Psychology, Drs. Leslie Hammer (current director of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center (OHWC), a Total Worker Health® Center of excellence funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)), Robert (Bob) Sinclair (former founding editor of Occupational Health Science and member of our Institute Advisory Board), and Ryan Olson (former co-director of the OHWC) were honored as inaugural Fellows of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP). The announcement was made at the 2026 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology conference last month.

The SOHP was founded in 2004 after a decade of pioneering collaborations between the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The SOPH Fellowships recognize members for significant, long-term contributions to occupational health psychology (OPH) through sustained excellence and leadership in advancing the science, practice and service of OPH. The SOHP has served as the primary professional society for the field of Occupational Health Psychology which is defined as “interdisciplinary partnerships of psychological and occupational health science professionals seeking to improve the quality of working life, and enhance the safety, health and well-being of workers in all occupations.” As inaugural Fellows of the SOHP, Drs. Hammer, Sinclair, and Olson were the first members to be recognized by the Society for their sustained excellence and leadership in the field.

As founding president of SOHP, Dr. Hammer’s groundbreaking research on workplace stress, supportive supervision, and organizational interventions to improve employee well-being continue to influence real-world practice of how organizations can support workers and their families. Funded by the NIH, CDC-NIOSH and DoD, Dr. Hammer has conducted extensive research developing and evaluating supervisor support training interventions.

Also a founding member and past president of SOHP, Dr. Sinclair’s impactful research has served to provide a deep understanding of economic stress and the connection between financial insecurity and occupational health. As part of his enduring scholarship, Dr. Sinclair served as founding editor of Occupational Health Science.

Dr. Olson’s intervention research program has focused primarily on addressing and improving the occupational health of lone workers such as commercial drivers and home care workers. His work has been highly interdisciplinary and has included collaborators from the fields of medicine, engineering, ergonomics, physiology, and economics. In addition to his intervention research, Dr. Olson led Oregon’s occupational fatality surveillance and prevention program (funded by NIOSH) for over a decade.

United in their mission to advance the real-world impact of applied research for worker safety, health, and well-being, Drs. Hammer and Olson were both founding investigators of the OHWC – the fourth NIOSH Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health®. The OHWC has produced many effective workplace interventions with integrated attention to safety, health, and well-being, resulting in a robust repository of ready-to-use evidence-based resources for Total Worker Health.

Together, Drs. Hammer, Sinclair, and Olson have brought deep impact to a field that continues to grow, innovate, and make meaningful strides toward improving the working life of all people and have each, in their own way, contributed to the success of the Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences at Oregon Health & Science University.