Papers of Frank Schmidt

Collection

Identifier: RG99.0354

Staff Only
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Scope and Contents

This collection contains correspondence and news articles and journals related to Frank's work specifically on employee well-being, performance, and many others.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found in 1984-2012

Creator

Schmidt, Frank L. (1944-04-29-2021-08-21) (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright status for collection materials may be unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owner. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility and potential liability based on copyright infringement for any use rests exclusively and solely with the user. Users must properly acknowledge University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections & Archives as the source of the material. For further information, visit https://www.lib.uiowa.edu/sc/services/rights/

Biographical / Historical

A highly-recognized researcher, Frank Schmidt joined the Tippie College in 1984 as the Ralph L. Scheets Distinguished Professor and retired as the Gary C. Fethke Chairs in Leadership in 2012.

Born in Louisville, Kentukcy, Frank was the oldest of six children in a farm family. As a sophomore at Bellarmine College, he developed an interest in applied psychology, especially psychological measurement. He went on to Purdue University where he received an MS and a PhD in Industrial Psychology. After graduation, he joined the faculty of Michigan State University, where he was promoted, received tenure, and started a longtime research collaboration with Jack Hunter. Howver, his desire for real-world applications of psychology led him to a reserach position at the Personal Research and Development Center at the U.S. Civil Service Commission where he worked for 11 years before joining the faculty at the University of Iowa.

In his extremely prolific career, Schmidt published more than 200 journal articles and book chapters with more than 100 of them in top-tier journals such as Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Applied, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, and Personnel Psychology. Schmidt's concepts of validity generalization (VG) and meta-analysis have had a tremendous impact on the application of psychology. His work has been cited over 76,000 times and his h-index is 98. This latter number places him 7th amoung all people with a University of Iowa affiliation.

Tippie College Dean Amy Kristof-Brown remarked that "Frank was a legendary scholar, devoted mentor, and meticulous innovator of research methods. His work with co-authors, which included many Ph.D students who became award winning scholars, shaped the field of meta-analysis across all disciplines."

Frank was a fellow of the American Psychological Association and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Division 14). He was president of Division 5 of the American Psychological Association (Division of Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics). Highly honored for his work, a sampling of his awards include the Dunnette Prize for Contributions to Individual Difference Research from the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, the Ingram Olkin Award for contributions to meta-analysis methods from the Society for Research Synthesis Methods, and the Gold Medal Lifetime Achievement Award for Applications of Psychology form the American Psychological Foundation. He served on numerous editorial boards in his career includig the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Resource Management Review, and many others. A full listing of his awards and editorial boards, please visit: http://frankschmidts.memorial/franks-impact/