Ronald F. Levant is a psychologist, a professor, and a former president of the American Psychological Association (APA). After earning an undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, Levant completed a Doctor of Education (EdD) at Harvard University. He also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Boston University.^[1]

Much of Levant's work has focused on men and fatherhood. At Boston University in the 1980s, Levant taught eight-week parenting courses for fathers.^[2] He co-authored the parenting guide Between Father and Child in the 1980s.^[3] From 2007 to 2015, he served as the editor of the journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.^[4] He is widely considered one of the key people responsible for creating the new field of the psychology of men and masculinities. He was included in the Elsevier-Stanford University data base listing the top 2% of scientists in the world. His subfields are listed as social psychology (rank # 577) and clinical psychology (rank # 626).^[5]

Levant is a psychology professor emeritus at the University of Akron.^[1] He has also held faculty appointments at Boston University, Harvard Medical School, Rutgers University and Nova Southeastern University.^[4][6] He was the APA president in 2005.^[4] He is also a former president of the Massachusetts Psychological Association,^[3] and of two Divisions of APA: 43 (Family Psychology) and 51 (Psychology of Men and Masculinities). He was awarded the APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research in 2011.^[7] His coauthored book, The Tough Standard: The Hard Truths About Masculinity and Violence (2020, Oxford University Press, with Shana Pryor) won the William James Book Award from Division 1 (General Psychology) of APA in 2021.^[8]

Selected publications

• Between Father and Child: How To Become the Kind of Father You Want To Be, Penguin Books, 1991 (with John Kelly). ISBN 978-0-14-015261-6.
• Family Therapy: A Comprehensive Overview, Prentice-Hall, 1987. ISBN 978-0-13-302885-0
• Masculinity Reconstructed. Dutton, 1995. (With Gini Kopecky). ISBN 0-525-93846-X
• Men and Sex: New Psychological Perspectives, J. Wiley, 1997 (editor, with Gary R. Brooks). ISBN 978-0-47-116903-1.
• The Psychology of Men and Masculinities, American Psychological Association, 2017 (with Y. Joel Wong). ISBN 978-1-43-382690-0.
• The Tough Standard: The Hard Truths About Masculinity and Violence, Oxford University Press, 2020 (with Shana Pryor). ISBN 9780190075873.^[9]