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NSF PR 96-60 - October 18, 1996
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Bennett Bertenthal Will Lead NSF Directorate
For Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Bennett I. Bertenthal, a psychologist at the University
of Virginia who specializes in studying the origins
and early development of perception, action and representation,
has been named the next Assistant Director of the
National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Directorate of
Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE).
Bertenthal replaces Cora B. Marrett, who returned
September 30 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison
after four years as head of SBE.
Bertenthal will lead NSF's research activities that
build fundamental scientific knowledge of human behavior
and characteristics, and social and economic systems
and organizations. He will also direct activities
in support of the Foundation's international endeavors,
providing U.S. scientists and engineers access to
the world's leading centers of science and engineering
research and education. He will oversee the collection,
analysis and publication of data on the status of
the nation's science and engineering resources.
Bertenthal will assume his NSF duties full-time in
early January 1997. He expects to become involved
in SBE activities immediately, however, planning frequent
visits to the Foundation as a consultant in the remaining
weeks of 1996. Jeff Fenstermacher, who has served
as executive officer of SBE since 1991, is serving
as Acting Assistant Director until Bertenthal begins
his official duties next year.
A professor of psychology and a University of Virginia
faculty member since 1979, Bertenthal has been director
of the university's Developmental Training Program
since 1989. He has received a number of prestigious
grants and awards, including the American Psychological
Association (APA)'s Boyd R. McCandless Young Scientist
Award for distinguished research in 1985, and a Career
Development Award (1985-90) from the National Institutes
of Health (NIH). He has published numerous articles
and chapters on the development of perception and
action, the perception and production of biological
motions, motion processing in infants and adults,
early experience and development, developmental methodology,
and nonlinear modeling of posture and gait. He has
reviewed grants for NIH and NSF for the past 10 years,
and recently completed a two-year term chairing a
Department of Health and Human Services' research
grant subcommittee on human development and aging.
He currently co-chairs the program committee for the
Society for Research in Child Development, is a member-at-large
of an APA division executive committee, and serves
on the editorial board of the journal "Developmental
Psychology," where he was associate editor 1988-1990.
Bertenthal is a member of the Society for Research
in Child Development, the American Psychological Association,
the American Psychological Society, the Psychonomic
Society, the International Society for Infant Studies,
the International Society for the Study of Posture
and Gait, and the Association for Research in Vision
and Ophthalmology.
He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in developmental psychology,
both from the University of Denver. His B.A. in psychology
is from Brandeis University.
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