Fryer Fund Honors Memory of Famed NYU Psychologist

Psychology research at NYU received a major boost recently when Sarah Fryer Leibowitz (WSC ’64, GSAS ’68) and Martin L. Leibowitz (CIMS ’65, ’69) made a gift endowing the Douglas H. and Katharine Fryer Thesis Fellowship Fund. Each year, the fund will make two $2,000 awards to graduate students in the psychology department for the best Ph.D. research proposals of the year, one in any area of psychology and the other specifically in organizational psychology. The prize money will help awardees cover the expenses incurred during their doctoral research and in publicizing it and presenting at professional meetings.

This fund honors the memory of Sarah’s parents. Her father, Douglas Fryer, founded the undergraduate Department of Psychology at NYU’s former University College of Arts and Science in the Bronx in 1925, and, two years later, helped found the University’s graduate Department of Psychology. It was there that he conducted his own research, founding the field of industrial and organizational psychology.

In her youth, Katharine Fryer toured as the piano accompanist to her mother, Louise Homer, the famed Metropolitan Opera contralto. After marrying Douglas, Louise devoted herself to raising the couple’s five daughters. Upon her husband’s death in 1960, she founded the Fryer Research Center for biochemical-nutritional treatment of mental disorders, which she directed until her death in 1997. She also published a book about her husband’s life and career, entitled Till Death Do Us Part.

“This gift is a way to honor my father’s contributions to the University’s psychology department and also to recognize everything the University has meant to our family,” said Sarah. “My husband and I both received an outstanding education at NYU that helped us launch successful careers. Not to mention, it’s where we met.”

“This gift is a fitting tribute to a very accomplished and notable psychologist who had great impact on the history of New York University,” said Ted Coons, professor of psychology at NYU. “It will propel the research of generations of young psychologists, allowing them to advance their own work while making significant contributions to our University and the field of psychology as a whole.”

A smaller version of the fund was established upon Fryer’s death in 1960, courtesy of his former graduate students. Initially, no cash prize was involved—recipients were honored at a special dinner attended by faculty, fellow students, and members of the Fryer family. In 2002, the Leibowitzes made a gift to the fund that allowed for awardees to receive a cash prize, and their most recent gift will allow the fund to exist in perpetuity. The Leibowitzes are joined by Sarah’s surviving sisters, Judy Shedden and Anne Eddis, in celebrating the memory of their parents through the fund.