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Eugene Galanter, Psychology

Eugene H. Galanter,  former professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, died of complications from cancer on November 9. He was 92 years old.

Dr. Galanter served in the US Army during World War II and earned a Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Croix de Guerre with Palm and Presidential Unit Citation.

When he returned to the United States, he attended Bryn Mawr College and later transferred to Swarthmore College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953 and taught at Penn until 1956, when he was invited to Harvard University to work with S.S. Stevens. In 1958, he joined Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He returned to Penn in 1959 and encouraged many psychology professors to come to Penn. 

He left for the University of Washington in 1962 to chair the psychology department. He joined Columbia University’s psychology faculty in 1966 and became emeritus professor there in 2008. While at Columbia, he founded the Psychophysics Laboratory and performed theoretical research while running research projects for NASA, FAA, the Office of Naval Research, the US Army and the National Science Foundation. He received NASA’s Distinguished Scientist Research Award.

Dr. Galanter was the author of 12 books and more than 150 articles on learning theory. He was also an entrepreneur. He founded the Children’s Computer School in 1980 and the Summer Computer Institute at Amherst College in 1981. In 1999, he founded Children’s Progress Inc., an educational technology company.

Dr. Galanter served as chairman of the Committee on Learning at the Salk Institute. He also was chairman of the board of Tompkins Hall Nursery School and served on the board of St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s School in New York.

Dr. Galanter and his daughter, Michelle, co-invented and co-patented the Galanter Educational Evaluation Lattice, the basis for the Children’s Progress Academic Assessment (CPAA).

He is survived by his wife, Patricia; daughters, Alicia, Gabrielle and Michelle; and eight grandchildren, Philip Walton, Theodore Walton, Margot Walton, Felix Walton, Roxanne Walton, Dexter Camara, Dashiell Camara and Kalyan Reynolds.

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