RELEASED: April 25, 2005

DANVILLE, KY—Jack Thompson, a professor of psychology at Centre College, has died.

"Professor Jack Thompson has been an inspirational teacher of psychology and psychobiology at Centre for nearly 30 years," said John Ward, vice president of academic affairs and dean of the College. "He has collaborated with scores of Centre undergrads on significant research topics, with regular presentations at the annual meeting of the Kentucky Academy of Science and the Southeastern Psychological Association. His forte was meaningful collaboration with students, helping them develop their own professional careers. In addition, professor Thompson published on a wide variety of topics, in his field of psychobiology as well as beyond it—as with the wide-ranging interdisciplinary study Women in Celtic Law and Culture. Professor Thompson had an extraordinarily breadth of intellectual interests and forcefully and memorably taught his students in all those areas. We will miss Jack in many ways."

Thompson, who had taught at Centre since 1976, is a 1971 cum laude graduate of Wagner College (B.A.). He received M.S. (1973) and Ph.D. (1975) degrees from Rutgers University. His major research interest was psychophysiology, and he had research and teaching interests in human cognition, learning, perception and developmental psychology. He was the author of The Psychobiology of Emotion (Plenum Press, 1988) and his research led to articles in scholarly journals including Acta Psychologica, Perception, The Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior and The Journal of Counseling Psychology.

Thompson had personal interest in the history and culture of Ireland and is the author of Women in Celtic Law and Culture (Edwin Mellen Press, 1996).

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

For news archives go to http://www.centre.edu/web/news/newsarchive.html.

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