Professor Dieter Wolke from the University of Warwick’s Department of Psychology will be bestowed with the rare accolade of an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Helsinki.

At what will only be the fifteenth ceremony of a two-century-old tradition, Professor Wolke will receive the institution’s highest award — the doctor honoris causa — from Helsinki’s Faculty of Medicine, in recognition of his distinguished and impactful career in Psychology.

Past recipients have included the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the celebrated Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

Professor Wolke is one of the most influential and most highly cited researchers over the last decade across 21 research fields, according to Web of Science. His research investigates why some children and adolescents develop mental health or social problems and others don’t.

He has investigated the consequences of being born preterm, and early regulatory problems such as excessive crying or poor sleep from birth into adulthood. Furthermore, he studies how parenting and sibling (or peer) bullying alters developmental outcome.

The head of the University of Warwick’s Lifespan Health and Wellbeing Research group and a collaborator with Warwick Medical School, Professor Wolke was named the British Psychological Society’s winner of the award for Distinguished Contributions to British Developmental Psychology in 2020.

On receiving an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Helsinki, Professor Dieter Wolke commented:

“I feel extremely honoured to be conferred a Doctor honoris causa by the University of Helsinki for my academic work. I have been collaborating with my Finnish colleagues over the last decades leading to many important publications. I look forward celebrating with them in a programme of formal events stretching over four days in Helsinki.”

The doctoral conferment ceremony will take place on 10 June 2022 in at the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Medicine.

10 June 2022

For more information, contact:

press@warwick.ac.uk