In Memory Of… John C. Loehlin
Honoring scientists who have made important and lasting contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior.
John C. Loehlin, PhD (1926-2020)
Professor Emeritus of Psychology; Computer Science
University of Texas at Austin
John Loehlin was born in India in 1926 of US missionary parents. He was educated at a mission school through high school and came to the US in 1943 for college. He attended Wooster, Baldwin-Wallace, and Harvard Colleges, graduating from the last with a degree in English Literature in 1947. After working for a year and a half in an advertising agency in Cleveland, he entered graduate study in Psychology at the University of California in Berkeley, from which he obtained a PhD in 1957—with a two-year timeout for service in the US Navy in the Pacific during the Korean War.
From 1957 to 1964, he taught in the Psychology Department of the University of Nebraska, where he met and married Marjorie Leafdale of the English Department. They had two children, Jennifer and James. From 1964 until his retirement in 1992, he taught in the Psychology and Computer Science Departments at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was Professor Emeritus. His research included work on computer models of personality; work with twins in collaboration with Robert C. Nichols of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, Nick Martin of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, and others; and a longitudinal study of 300 Texas adoptive families with Joseph M. Horn and Lee Willerman. He was the author or coauthor of over a hundred journal articles and book chapters, of seven books: on behavior genetics, computer models, and theories of personality; and of two volumes of light verse, Verses of a Young Man and Verses from Later Years.
Individuals Honoring John Loehlin:
Sheri Berenbaum, Pennsylviania State University
Thomas Bouchard, University of Minnesota
Daniel Briley, University of Illinois
Lisabeth DiLalla, Southern Illinois University
Don Foss, University of Houston
Morton Ann Gernsbacher, University of Wisconsin-Madison
H. Hill Goldsmith, University of Wisconsin-Madison
I. I. Gottesman, University of Minnesota
Kelly Klump, Michigan State University
Leslie Leve, University of Oregon
Ulman Lindenberger, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Nick Martin, Queensland Institute of Medical Research
Jack McArdle
*Jenae Neiderhiser, Pennsylvania State University
Nancy Pedersen, Karolinska Institute
Robert Plomin, King’s College London
Michael Pogue-Geile, University of Pittsburgh
Richard Rose, Indiana University
Jeanette Taylor, Florida State University
*Eric Turkheimer, University of Virginia
Carol VanHulle, University of Wisconsin-Madison
*FABBS would like to thank Dr. Jenae Neiderhiser and Dr. Eric Turkheimer for nominating Dr. Loehlin for this honor and for leading the effort.
