Allen Joel Neuringer
Reed College
Allen Joel Neuringer received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and is presently MacArthur Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Reed College. At Reed, he has guided more than 120 year-long senior thesis projects, many leading to publications. Moreover, he has managed, after almost 50 years of creative research, to publish 12 papers or chapters, plus many oral presentations, over the course of the last few years—this at a time in his career when many others slow down or even stop. Recipient of many grants from NIMH and NSF, he has steadily produced research findings that have attracted wide attention both within and outside of behavior analysis. At the same time, he served on the editorial boards of five different journals. He has served as reviewer for many other journals, including—despite the fact that he has worked in behavior analysis for his entire career—many journals clearly not behavioral, such as Cognition, American Psychologist, Memory and Cognition, Psychological Review, and Science. Even though his research contributions are beyond admirable, the most impressive thing about Professor Neuringer’s research is its originality. One of his reviewers described what is a widely held assessment of Dr. Neuringer: “Allen is simply the most creative researcher in our discipline.” He has, among other things, taken a variable, variability, that is a moving target and shown its lawfulness. Some of his research on this topic has been cited close to 200 times, with over 50 of his papers having been cited more than 10 times each. He has worked successfully and creatively in other areas that offer challenges equal to those of his research on variability, such as self-experimentation and responding for food reinforcement in the presence of free food. Professor Neuringer’s exemplary career as a researcher and teacher sets a high standard for others in our discipline.