Jeffrey M. Zacks was installed as the Edgar James Swift Professor in Arts & Sciences on Feb. 4. The program included remarks from Deanna Barch, vice dean of research and the Gregory B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry, and the installation and medallion presentation by Feng Sheng Hu, the Richard G. Engelsmann Dean of Arts & Sciences and Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor.
In his remarks, Zacks discussed his lab’s recent work on spatial representations and explored how people’s memories perform better when they break longer events into shorter pieces, known as segmentation. The way our brains process and organize information can tell us a lot about human development, especially when it is affected by diseases, he said. “I’m in this line of work because I’m captivated by the bare, bald facts of human experience,” Zacks said.
Zacks thanked his family, especially his parents, James and Rose Zacks, both prominent neuroscientists. “I'm proud to be a second-generation cognitive scientist,” he said. “Their willingness to talk shop with me at each stage has enriched my experience tremendously.”
About Jeffrey M. Zacks
Zacks is the Edgar James Swift Professor in Arts & Sciences, chair of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, and a professor of radiology at WashU. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and his PhD from Stanford University. Zacks’ research has been funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science
Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation. He has served as chair of the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association, chair of the governing board of the Psychonomic Society — the leading association of experimental psychologists — and president of the Federation of Associations in the Behavioral & Brain Sciences.
Professor Zacks has served as associate editor of several journals, including Cognition, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, and Collabra. He is the recipient of scientific awards from the National Science Foundation, Psychonomic Society, American Psychological Association, and the American Psychological Foundation, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, the Midwest Psychological Association, and the Society of Experimental Psychologists. Zacks is the author of three books: “Flicker: Your Brain on Movies,” “Event Cognition” (with G.A. Radvansky), and “Ten Lectures on the Representation of Events in Language, Perception, Memory, and Action Control.” He co-edited “Understanding Events” (with Thomas F. Shipley) and “Representations in Mind and World: Essays Inspired by Barbara Tversky” (with Holly A. Taylor). Zacks has published more than 110 journal articles and written for Salon, Aeon, and The New York Times.
About Edgar James Swift
Established in 2003 by Washington University, this professorship honors Edgar James Swift, the first chair of the Department of Psychology in Arts & Sciences. Born in Ravenna, Ohio in 1860, Professor Swift received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1886. He then traveled
to Europe and studied with several German psychologists — Wundt in Leipzig, and Ebbinghaus and Paulsen in Berlin— before returning to the United States to teach and write. In 1900 he began graduate study at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., receiving his doctorate in 1903.
Professor Swift joined the faculty of WashU that same year. He served as chair of the Department of Psychology and Education until 1924, when separate departments were formed, and he continued to chair the Department of Psychology until his retirement in 1931.
The author of seven books and 84 articles and reviews, Professor Swift wrote for practitioners in his field and for the general public. Initially focusing on pedagogical methods, he later restated many of the principles for a general audience in trade journals, in the book titled “How to Influence Men”, and in Scribner’s Magazine. He died in 1932 in Maine.
Funding for the Swift Professorship was provided through the Kate M. Gregg Faculty Development Fund, established in 2001 by a generous bequest from a 1959 alumna of WashU.
