Impact of Science on Application Awardee
2004: Dr. John A. Nevin
Dr. John A. Nevin, known as Tony, studied marine engineering at Yale University and served five years in the Coast Guard before encountering experimental psychology, which proved to be surprisingly compatible with his background in engineering and physical science. His graduate studies at Columbia University combined human psychophysics and color vision with behavioral analyses of conditioned reinforcement in rats and matching to sample in pigeons. After receiving his PhD in 1963, he taught at Swarthmore College until 1968. He returned to Columbia from 1968 until 1972, where he served two years as department chair. To the delight of his five children, he then moved to the relatively rural University of New Hampshire, where he remained until retirement in 1995. He now lives with his wife Nora on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, where he engages in community and environmental conservation projects while maintaining research collaborations in Utah and New Zealand through the magic of electronic communication, supplemented by occasional visits. The post-retirement persistence of his research and theoretical work on behavioral momentum is itself an instance of momentum, based on the many reinforcers he has been privileged to enjoy throughout his life.
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