UD professor honored for organizational turnaround of the 60-year-old Psychonomic Society

When University of Delaware professor Helene Intraub stepped onto the stage to accept the Psychonomic Society's Clifford T. Morgan Distinguished Leadership Award, she found herself reflecting on a moment more than a decade earlier when the future of the society itself hung in the balance. “We could have failed miserably,” she recalled. 

Intraub, a professor with the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, served on the governing board of the Psychonomic Society from 2009 to 2014. By the time she received the leadership award in November 2025 recognizing her intellectual leadership and service, the Psychonomic Society had grown into a global research organization with more than 4,000 members.

For more than six decades, the preeminent society has been committed to understanding how the brain works through the experimental study of cognition. But when Intraub was called on to take the helm back in 2012, the society’s finances were in dire straits, and its entire future was in doubt. “It was time to sink or swim,” she said of the heady days when the scientific society had to be completely reorganized in order to survive.

The organization faced significant financial challenges that would soon require sweeping changes to modernize its business operations. “I had barely balanced a checkbook, and I ended up on the audit committee,” Intraub remarked as she thought back to the days leading up to a series of momentous meetings where the society grappled with its history in order to ensure its future. 

Back then, Intraub took to the podium in front of 1,500 of her colleagues at the plenary meeting of the Psychonomic Society to announce some of the major changes the society would be undertaking. There was raucous applause when she elevated the student members to full membership status, giving them access to top-tier global research networks.

But she also faced difficult decisions. Up to that point, the society had maintained a stable of seven world-class, peer-reviewed journals that were published in-house, which required extensive overhead. To solidify the group’s finances, these journals were sold to Springer Publishing, where they remain to this day as impactful outlets of psychological research.

People cried as the collective decision was reached to sell the journals, since all present knew this would mean that colleagues would be losing their jobs. Even though Intraub recalled putting together the best severance packages possible, the decision was not taken lightly.

She was so nervous in the leadup to the momentous meetings where the society’s fate would be determined that she couldn’t eat. “I skipped breakfast,” she said, “I was sick to my stomach.” 

“You know, we could sink Psychonomics today,” she recalled a colleague telling her. Instead, they pulled off a dramatic turnaround. Balancing competing interests, Intraub and the executive committee managed to reach consensus and right the ship. “It went beautifully,” she later recalled.

The result was a new charter that modernized the organization’s governance. Crafted by Intraub and the rest of the strategic planning committee, the charter defined the society with a living document, “alive and thriving,” that was intended to be flexible and accommodating to the changing needs of a modern research organization.

Under Intraub’s leadership, the society reoriented to fight against the siloing of science and instead brought forward bold initiatives to foster collaboration, including special issues of its journals and themed symposia. 

Looking back, Intraub mentions the society’s support for its student trainees and its affordable, approachable atmosphere as particular sources of pride. To ensure the Psychonomic Society’s longevity, Intraub and colleagues made sure that the society’s guiding rules were able to adjust to changing demands. “When you set a strategic plan that builds change in, you set yourself up for success. You don’t get stuck in the mud.”