Personal Information
I was born in Lubbock, Texas (my mom
knew Buddy Holly and Peggy Sue) and raised in Richardson, Texas (a suburb
of Dallas). Here's my high school (J. J. Pearce)
graduation picture (hey,
I know, but it was 1975).
I
got my BA from Washington University in
St. Louis, where I majored in mathematics. (I know you must be
surprised about my nerdy
major given my h.s. graduation photo.) My junior year, I took
a history course on Freud, and I fell in love with psychodynamic
psychology. After teaching secondary school math for a couple
of years, I went to graduate school at the University
of Texas at Austin in clinical psychology. I quickly learned
that Freud and his contemporary followers were intellectually
bankrupt. My advisor, Lee Willerman, was a much better role model.
Lee was one of the most intellectually and personally delightful
people I've ever met, and he led me to discover a love of individual
differences–IQ, sex differences, psychopathology, behavior
genetics, etc. And he taught me the human sexuality course when
I learned
about an interesting theory of sexual orientation, which I
investigated for my dissertation. The theory involved maternal
prenatal stress, and I found no evidence for it. However, I loved
the research area, and have stayed there, more or less. After
an internship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in
Pittsburgh, I moved to Northwestern University in 1989, and I
have remained there.
My Family
(I know what you're thinking...hearing about people's kids is boring. But my kids are interesting, really.)
I have two kids, Drew and Kate.
Drew
is 18 years old. He is really into sports–wrestling,
cross country, and baseball. He has mostly good taste in music--tastes
range from Elliott Smith and Nick Drake to Toots and the Maytals and Jimi
Hendrix. Drew just graduated Evanston
Township High School and will be attending the University of Texas starting
in the fall of 2003.
Kate (1, 2) is 16 years old. She is at Evanston Township High School and is on the varsity water polo team. Kate is extremely conscientious (got those genes from her mom), and gets up very early during the school year and studies late, and it shows in her grades. We go to the movies most Sundays at the magnificent theater in Evanston. The most beautiful girl in the world isn't Garbo....
I was married to their mom, Deb, for 15 years, and she is a fantastic math teacher and a generally cool woman. Here she is with Dave, who is equally cool.
Outside of my job, I do not do very interesting activities–no race car driving or acting or music performances or sailing across the ocean. Mostly I like to enjoy Chicago nightlife, including restaurants and music venues (the Green Mill and Schuba's are favorites), ride my bike along the lake (when weather permits), and listen to lots of music. I think you can tell a lot from someone by the kind of music they listen to–like whether you want to listen to their cds. Just to give you an idea, here is a list of a few albums I love (but I have omitted others I love even more).