Education:
My early schooling was in Elmwood, Connecticut and William Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. I attended Oberlin College on a 4 year Amos C. Miller Scholarship. After receiving the AB in English in 1935, I stayed on 2 years more in Oberlin for an MA in Psychology, 1937, under Professor R. H. Stetson. I then took an additional third year at-large at Oberlin to prepare for a switch to Zoology for Ph.D. work under Professor Paul A. Weiss at the University of Chicago. After receiving the Ph.D. at Chicago in 1941, I did a year of postdoctoral research as a National Research Council Fellow at Harvard University under Professor Karl S. Lashley.
Professional Positions:
Biology research fellow, Harvard University, at Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology (1942-46); Assistant professor, Department of Anatomy, University of Chicago (1946-52); Associate professor of psychology, University of Chicago (1952-53); Section Chief, Neurological Diseases and Blindness, National Institutes of Health (1952-53); Hixon professor of psychobiology, California Institute of Technology (1954-present).
Awards and
Honors:
Amos C. Miller Scholarship,
Oberlin College (1931-35);
National Research Council
Fellowship (Antonio
E. Puente 1941-42);
Distinguished Alumni Citation;
Oberlin College (1954); Elected
National Academy of Sciences
(1960); Elected American Academy
of Arts and Sciences (1963);
Howard
Award, American Psychological Association (1971); California Scientist of the Year Award (1972); Co-recipient William Thomson Wakeman Research Award, National Paraplegia Foundation (1972); Honorary Doctor of Science degree, Cambridge University (1972); Passano Award in Medical Science (1973); Elected American Philosophic``````al Society (1974); Elected Honorary Member American Neurological Association (1974); Co-recipient Claude Bernard Science Journalism Award (1975); Karl Lashley Award of American Philosophical Society (1976); Elected Foreign Member of Royal Society (1976); Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, University of Chicago (1976); Elected member of Pontifical Academy of Sciences (1978); Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, Kenyon College (1979); Wolf Prize in Medicine (1979); Ralph Gerard Award of the Society of Neurosciences (1979); International Visual Literacy Association Special Award (1979); Albert Lasker Medical Research Award (1979); Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, The Rockefeller University (1980); American Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award (1980)
A vocational and anti-brain-strain:
Collected and raised large American moths in grade school. Ran trap line and collected live wild pets during junior high school years. Three-letter man in varsity athletics in high school and college. Through middle life continued evening and weekend diversionary activities including sculpture, ceramics, figure drawing, sports, American folk dance, boating, fishing, snorkeling, water colors, and collecting unusual fossils - among which we have a contender for the world's 3rd largest ammonite.