A Conversation with Bruce Halpern

Abstract

Bruce P. Halpern, the Emeritus Susan Linn Sage Professor of Psychology and Emeritus Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, was interviewed by Emeritus Professor Howard C. Howland of Neurobiology and Behavior. Professor Halpern was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in East Orange, New Jersey. He received a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers, and a PhD degree from Brown University in Psychology working under Carl Pfaffmann. He then came to Cornell as a post-doctoral student with Morley R. Kare in the Veterinary College. He then accepted an assistant professorship at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, returning in 1966 to eventually become a tenured professor in the department of Psychology and the Section of Neurobiology and Behavior in the Division of Biological Sciences. In his years at Cornell Halpern served as chair of the Psychology for a total of 12 years while teaching in the introductory course in Neurobiology and Behavior, courses in Sensory Function and in Aging, all the while conducting research in, initially, taste and then smell. Howland and Halpern discuss the many changes in research and teaching over the last forty four years.