In Honor Of…Donald J. Foss

Honoring scientists who have made important and lasting contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior

Donald J. Foss, PhD
Professor in Developmental, Cognitive, & Behavioral Neuroscience
University of Houston

Donald J. Foss has served as the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the University of Houston System; the Provost of the University of Houston; the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida State University; and the Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Foss completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Minnesota and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University, at its Center for Cognitive Studies. Arriving at the University of Texas at Austin in the late sixties to develop its program in psycholinguistics, Foss along with his late colleague, David Hakes, would soon write the fundamental textbook on psycholinguistics, Psycholinguistics: An Introduction to the Psychology of Language (Prentice-Hall, 1978).

Foss’s research interests have been in cognitive psychology, specializing in language comprehension. More recently he has turned his attention to the factors that determine success in college and how to instill them in beginning college students, as demonstrated in his evidence-based book on this topic, Your Complete Guide to College Success.

Foss has been a highly effective and beloved administrator. He was instrumental in acquiring a beautiful new building, with state-of-the-art facilities, for the Psychology Department at the University of Texas at Austin. At Florida State University, he founded and chaired the highly successful Arts & Sciences Leadership Council.

Foss’s leadership contributions to the field are vast. He has chaired the Publications and Communications Board and the Council of Editors of the American Psychological Association; served as a member of the Strategic Planning Commission of the Psychonomic Society; and he has served as Editor for Contemporary Psychology and Associate Editor for Annual Review of Psychology, American Psychologist, and Contemporary Psychology, among other positions.

Foss is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi, and he is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Psychonomic Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Foss has received an all-University Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Texas at Austin and an Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota.

Donald Foss’s FABBS colleagues are delighted to honor him for his contributions to our sciences and to our organizations.
 

 

Individuals Honoring Don Foss:

Eugene Borgida, University of Minnesota
Christine Cameron
Howard Egeth, Johns Hopkins University 
Robert Feldman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Susan Fiske, Princeton University
Lori Foster, North Carolina State University
*Morton Ann Gernsbacher, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Susan Goldin-Meadow, University of Chicago
Arthur Graesser, University of Memphis
John Hagen, University of Michigan
D Stephen Lindsay, University of Victoria
Nora Newcombe, Temple University
Brian Nosek, University of Virginia; Center for Open Science
Gary Olson, University of California, Irvine
Fred Oswald, Rice University
James Pomerantz, Rice University
Wendy Rogers, University of Illinois
Paula Skedsvold, FABBS
Jeremy Wolfe, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Jun Zhang, University of Michigan

* FABBS would like to thank Dr. Morton Ann Gernsbacher for nominating Dr. Foss for this honor and for leading the effort.