Obituary: David A. Grant (1916-1977).

David A. Grant, Clark L. Hull Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin, died on December 28, 1977, in Madison. He is remembered by family and friends, including a very large number of students whose first efforts in the world of experimental psychology were enhanced and guided by this good and demanding professor. David Grant, born May 17, 1916, was educated at the University of Iowa (BA, 1938), the University of Wisconsin (MA, 1939), and Stanford University (PhD, 1941). His interesting life in the department at the University of Wisconsin began in the basement of Bascom Hall in 1941 as an assistant professor sharing an office with Harry Harlow, another Stanford PhD of a few years earlier. Harlow's days were spent at the cheese-factory-turned-primate-laboratory, so Grant had the office to himself. He advanced through the ranks to full professor and research professor and chaired the department during 1950-1954 and 1971-1972. The department grew impressively during his professional life in it and moved into a building of its own. It is currently a large and respected department. David Grant was still a member of it when he died. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Bruce Victor Moore (1891-1977).

Bruce Victor Moore was the first person to receive the PhD in industrial psychology in America. It was awarded to him in 1921 by the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie-Mellon University. Moore was born in Kokomo, Indiana, on September 9, 1891. Prior to his work at Carnegie Tech, he received an AB and an MA in psychology from Indiana University, taught high school for two years, and started further graduate work at Columbia University. This was interrupted by World War I. He was one of the first enlisted men in the U.S. Army's Division of Psychology, where he was assigned as a psychologist at Walter Reed Hospital. Following the war he went on to Carnegie Tech, which quickly became a center for industrial psychology. In 1920, while completing his graduate work, Moore was made assistant professor of psychology at the Pennsylvania State College (now University). By 1928 he had attained the rank of professor and had been appointed head of the Psychology Department. He served very efficiently as an administrator until his first retirement in 1952. Following his retirement from Penn State in 1952, Moore joined the central office staff of the American Psychological Association, where he served for seven years as the Executive Officer for the Education and Training Board. His excellent work there was a measure of his outstanding administrative talents. Next he was invited to be a visiting professor of psychology at the University of Miami, specifically to assist in the development of the graduate program. He remained at Miami for three years, 1959-1962; during the final year he served as department head. His last 15 years were spent in State College, Pennsylvania, where he died on November 14, 1977. Moore was moderately tall, slight of build, quiet in manner, persistent in his motivation, steadfast in meeting his responsibilities, and universally respected. His two marriages were very successful and brought him security and happiness. The first, to Elsie Kohler in 1924, terminated in her death in 1967 and gave him one daughter, Mary Ellen Moore Kinnaird. The second was in 1969 to Winona Morgan, a fellow child psychologist who still resides in State College. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Lillian Gertrude Portenier (1890-1979).

Obituary briefly characterizes the background of Lillian G. Portenier and her contributions to the field of psychology. Her formal affiliation with psychology began in the fall of 1930, when she became assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wyoming, although she had been involved with psychology prior to that date. At the time, the Department of Psychology was headed by June Etta Downey. Funds were far from abundant and the teaching load was heavy, but Downey had established a tradition of excellence in both research and teaching and Portenier continued in that tradition. In 1934, after earning her doctorate in psychology from Columbia University, Portenier was promoted to associate professor of psychology and in 1939 to professor. During the World War II years of 1942-1944, she also served as acting head of the Department of Psychology and as acting head of Student Personnel Services. Lillian Portenier's major interests in psychology were related to mental testing, mental health, and child psychology. As well as teaching in these fields, she was active in applying the scientific method to society's problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Manfred J. Meier (1929-2006).

Manfred J. Meier, one of the most influential figures in the establishment of clinical neuropsychology as a specialty field, died at age 77 in Mexico on August 27, 2006, after a one-year battle with lung cancer. Manny's college and graduate school studies were completed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned a bachelor's degree (1952), a master's degree (1953), and a doctorate (1956)--all in psychology. During his graduate years, his mentors included Charles Bridgeman and Karl U. Smith, but he was also influenced by Harry Harlow, for whom he served as a research assistant in his primate laboratory. Manny's attendance at a 1952 conference where the speakers included Ward Halstead, Donald Hebb, Roger Sperry, and Hans-Lukas Teuber solidified his interest in the emerging field of neuropsychology. During his 36-year career at the University of Minnesota, Manny published more than 70 professional papers, book chapters, and books. He was promoted to associate professor in 1962 and to professor in 1966. At his retirement in 1993, he was named professor emeritus. A committed educator, Manny served as the director of the APA-accredited Psychology Internship Consortium from 1983 to 1993 and as director of a postdoctoral program in clinical neuropsychology from 1985 to 1993. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: William A. Owens (1914-2005).

Presents an obituary for William A. Owens (1914-2005). Bill received his bachelor's degree in mathematics at Winona State University in 1935. He started his graduate studies at the University of Chicago but switched to the University of Minnesota early on. Under the guidance of Paterson, he received his doctorate in differential psychology in 1940, with minors in statistics and counseling. Bill then took a position in the psychology department at Iowa State University in 1940, but he left to enlist in the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor was attacked. When the war ended, Bill returned to Iowa State University, where he rose to full professor and head of the psychology department. After 13 years at Iowa State University, he went to Purdue University and, in 1968, moved to the University of Georgia to start a program in measurement and human differences. He subsequently became director of the Institute for Behavioral Research and split his time between teaching, research, and administration. Bill took the post of acting provost in 1976-1977 and helped reorganize the higher levels of administration at the University of Georgia. During his teaching career, he supervised over 100 theses and dissertations. He retired in 1984 at age 70. Bill consulted extensively, frequently with the firm of Richardson, Bellows, and Henry. He published over 80 articles, books, and chapters, as well as seven tests, during his outstanding research career. Bill's most prominent work was on biodata, much of it supported over an 18-year period by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The 100th birthday of Rudolf Nissen

Rudolf Nissen was born in Neisse, Schlesien, 9 September 1896. From 1921 to 1933 he was the favorite pupil of Ferdinand Sauerbruch in Munich and Berlin. 1930 he became professor of surgery at the Charité. The assumption of power by the Nazi-regime forced Nissen to resign his position and end his career in Germany. He took over the surgical chair in Istanbul, Turkey. Emigrating in 1939 to the USA, he held surgical positions in hospitals at New York and accepted in 1952 the chair of Surgery at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Nissen died in Riehen/ Basel on 22 January 1981. Nissen was a critical observant clinician, an efficient and popular physician, a teacher and a speaker. Of historical significance are pioneering works in thoracic surgery, the first successful pneumectomy in man, the classical works about the treatment of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease and hiatus hernia. The Nissen-Rossetti type of fundoplication has remained the standard procedure in Europe and the USA.     

Charles W. Bray II (1904–1982).

Presents an obituary for Charles William Bray, II. Bray received the master's degree in psychology in 1926, and the PhD in 1928; his doctoral thesis on "Vitamin A Deficiency and Its Relation to Hearing" was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1941. He was appointed instructor in psychology in the Princeton department in 1928, and then continued to rise through the academic ranks, becoming assistant professor in 1931, associate professor in 1941, and full professor in 1945. In his academic teaching, Bray was mainly concerned with experimental methodology, working with other members of the departmental staff in laboratory training courses for undergraduate students and was also deeply involved in the training of graduate students and especially their guidance in connection with their doctoral theses. He taught courses in differential psychology and educational psychology, as well as the laboratory training course in experimental psychology. Personally, Chuck was a man of warmth, grace, forthrightness, and sound judgment; he was the perfect friend to all who knew him well. As a scientist he was perceptive, painstaking, and thoroughgoing, with an unhurried objectivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rene A. Ruiz (1929–1982).

Presents an obituary for Rene A. Ruiz. Art, as he preferred to be called, was born on May 2, 1929, in Los Angeles and graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1954 with a major in psychology. He pursued graduate training in clinical psychology first at USC and later at the University of Nebraska where he received the PhD in 1963. Early on, he aspired toward an academic career. He began as an instructor and moved up to assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kansas Medical School. After 6 years in a medical setting, he moved to the University of Arizona as associate professor of psychology. In addition to teaching and an active private practice, Art carried out research and wrote on such diverse themes as group psychotherapy, clinical obesity, and nursing education in mental health. Toward the end of the 1960s, Art redirected his attention to the role of minorities in psychology. He worked in various ways to increase the number of Hispanics in psychology and to improve mental health services for culturally different populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Richard S. Crutchfield (1912-1977).

Crutchfield was born in Pittsburgh on June 20, 1912. He received his BA in civil engineering from the California Institute of Technology and his PhD in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1938-1939 he was a research associate at Swarthmore College, where he worked with Wolfgang Kohler. The next year he was an instructor at Mount Holyoke College. From 1940 to 1946 he held research and administrative appointments with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Office of War Information, and the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey in Germany. In several of these posts he contributed to the developing methodology of opinion surveys, and for distinguished service in the last position he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the U.S. Department of War. In 1946 he returned to Swarthmore, where he later served as Chairman of the Psychology Department. After several visiting appointments at the University of California, Berkeley, he came permanently as professor of psychology in 1953. He was one of the original team of research psychologists at the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) in Berkeley, and in 1970 he succeeded Donald W. MacKinnon as Director. Failing health forced him to resign this position in 1973. Crutchfield passed away on July 19, 1977. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson, a wife of a cotter and a physician. The lawsuit against physicians 1907

The Norwegian poet and Nobel Prize laureate in literature Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson (1832-1910) lived for the last 35 years of his life on his estate Aulestad, near Lillehammer. The wife of a cottar at a nearby farm, a servant to his wife Karoline, fell ill in November 1906 with an incarcerated hernia and was sent to the local hospital by Bj?rnson's physician. On arrival at the hospital the doctor in charge found her too ill to operate on. She died a few hours after an operation the next day of peritonitis and a gangrenous intestine. Bj?rnson found this inexcusable. Because of a session with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, he left his son Erling to attack the hospital in a press article. This led to a lawsuit in which the doctor was accused of irresponsibility and incompetence. After several court sessions the case was dropped on 7 July 1907. This was probably the first case in Norway raised against doctors for irresponsible and incompetent treatment of a patient with death as the result.     

Robert R. Sears (1908–1989).

Presents an obituary for Robert R. Sears. Robert Richardson Sears, David Starr Jordan professor of psychology at Stanford University, chair of the Department of Psychology, 1953-1961, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, 1961-1970, and organizer and first head at Stanford of the Boys' Town Center for Youth Development, now known as the Center for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families, died at his home in Menlo Park, California, on May 22, 1989. Born in Palo Alto on August 31, 1908, he was 80 at the time of his death. During a period of failing health in his last year, he continued with his professional writing as best he could. He is survived by his wife, Pauline Snedden Sears, following 57 years of married life, and two grown children, David O. Sears and Nancy Sears Barker, plus six grandchildren. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fluorescein angiography versus ERG for predicting the prognosis in central retinal vein occlusion

Dr. Roa was the first professor of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile to give an ethics course to medical students, even when the importance of formal teaching of medical ethics was not yet recognized internationally. His efforts contributed to the creation of the Center for Bioethical and Humanistic Studies in 1988 and to the creation of official ethics courses for first and sixth year medical students in 1993. During 20 years, be chaired the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile. He also promoted a diffusion program about medical ethics through meetings, conferences and symposia. He was responsible for the Ministry of Health's decision to create ethics committees in public hospitals in 1988 and for the Presidental decision about organ transplantation in 1995. He carried out anthropology courses and gave numerous lectures on humanistic aspects of medicine. His ethical principles are resumed in what he called the "ethics of generosity", in which the dignity of human beings is respected above all, in his opinion, the way civilizations see goodwill has been preponderant in the course of history. The recent proposal to teach humanistic fundamentals to medical students is a tribute to the memory of Professor Roa.     

Clinical trials: are they really useful for clinical decision making?

For the first time salvarsan treatment in Cracow was successfully held in Opthalmology Clinic of Jagiellonian University by Prof. Boles?aw Wicherkiewicz, who used preparation 606 in three cases at ophthalmic complications caused by syphilis infection. He received this preparation directly from P. Ehrlich.     

Starke Rosecrans Hathaway (1903–1984).

Presents an obituary for Starke Rosecrans Hathaway. Hathaway obtained both his undergraduate and master's level training with James P. Porter at Ohio University in Athens. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology in 1927 and his master's degree in 1928. Porter persuaded him to remain in Athens as an instructor in psychology and physiology; by 1929 he held the rank of assistant professor. Hathaway's original interests in engineering persisted; he perfected and marketed a chronoscope, a psychogalvanometer, and electrical stimulation and recording devices for the study of neural processes. It is interesting to recall that one of the first uses to which Hathaway had put his psychogalvanometer was as a lie detector in helping police in Athens to solve a murder case. Hathaway's contributions to clinical psychology were recognized at the national level by the APA's Division of Clinical Psychology, which conferred its Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1959 and elected him as its president in 1963. Elected to Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa, an ABPP diplomate in clinical psychology, he was awarded honorary doctorates by Ohio University in 1966 and by Ohio State University in 1972. His honors were capped in 1977 when the APA conferred its award for Distinguished Contribution for Applications in Psychology. Hathaway retired from the University of Minnesota in 1971. He died at his home in Minneapolis on July 4, 1984. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Carl Ward Backman (1923-2008).

Carl Ward Backman, a long-time fellow of the American Psychological Association, died at his home in Reno, Nevada, on February 16, 2008. He was 84. After earning a doctorate in sociology, he joined the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) in 1955. There he remained until his death, serving as a professor, department chair, director of social psychology, dean, and emeritus professor. His time at UNR was interrupted only by a two-year stint as program director for sociology and social psychology at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC. Carl had a great influence on social psychology, the university he served, the department and the PhD program that he helped build, as well as on his colleagues, students, and friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Oakley Stern Ray (1931-2007).

Presents an obituary for Oakley Stern Ray. Ray was a teacher--whether in the role of professor, chief, or colleague. Late in his life, he described himself as having had four "day jobs," although he could not have accomplished so much if he had limited himself to daylight hours. He so completely inhabited each role that the colleagues he knew in one capacity were often unaware the others existed. These four careers were Veterans Administration (VA) psychologist, professor, author, and executive. He always had at least two of these careers going at the same time, usually three. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was productive in all four simultaneously. Oakley's 76th birthday was February 6, 2007; he died of leukemia on February 7, 2007. He is survived by his wife Kathy Ray, his sons Steve, Christian, and Tom Ray, his daughter Deb Scanlon, his grandchildren--and thousands of students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The peregrinations of an applied generalist in government, industry, a university psychology department, and a business school.

The career of an applied psychologist, in measurement, industrial/organizational psychology, consumer behavior, and evaluation research, is chronicled from his undergraduate education through his position as a business school professor. This biographical odyssey compares a variety of employment settings; traces the major influences on his career; provides a commentary on applications, research, and scholarship in a business school setting vs a psychology department; and offers a synopsis of his interests and activities as he moves into his status as an emeritus professor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: W. Horsley Gantt (1892-1980).

This item presents an obituary for W. Horsley Gantt (1892-1980). He first studied medicine at the University of North Carolina and received his medical degree in 1920 from the University of Virginia. John Dewey was especially influential in helping Horsley obtain a position at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore in 1929, where he immediately started the first Pavlovian laboratory in the US. physiology. In 1950, while still at Hopkins, he started a second Pavlovian laboratory at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Perry Point, Maryland; he continued as director there until 1974. Horsley continued as professor emeritus at Hopkins, where, until three weeks before his death, he lectured, attended conferences, and participated in symposia. He was also a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical School, where he taught each spring semester. Simultaneously, he was research professor at the Performance Research Laboratory of the University of Louisville, collecting data until two months before he died. Horsley was widely honored for the research and theories he developed over the past 50 years, and he personally regarded his theories of schizokinesis and autokinesis as his most important contributions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aid given to a dental refugee in World War Two

In 1939, an Austrian/Jewish Dental Surgeon and his wife escaped from Nazi occupied Vienna but had to sacrifice his home, his practice and all his personal possessions and securities. He managed to reach the French consulate in Milan where he was given asylum for a limited period and from there planned his future.     

Obituary: Leonard D. Eron.

Leonard D. Eron, Editor of Journal of Abnormal Psychology (1973-1980), died May 3, 2007, of complications of congestive heart failure, at the age of 87. He also served as associate editor of the American Psychologist (1986-90), and president of the Midwestern Psychological Association (1985-86) and of the International Society for Research on Aggression (1988-90). Dr. Eron's research focused on the causes of aggression, conducting an influential 40-year longitudinal study, as well as many collaborative cross-cultural studies with scholars in Europe. His research on the impact of media violence on children's behavior has been widely recognized. During his years as a professor at Yale University, the University of Iowa, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Michigan, he left his mark on countless students who carry on his tradition of merging research with the public policy applications of psychology. He was a Fulbright Scholar twice, and a member of many professional and governmental panels, including the National Research Council Panel on Understanding and Control of Violence and the American Psychological Association's Commission on Violence and Youth, of which he was the Chair. He was a diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology and a fellow of the Academy of Clinical Psychology, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1980 he was given the APA award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Knowledge; in 1995 he received the American Psychological Foundation's Gold Medal Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest; and in 2003 he received APA's award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Media Psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)