Douglas L. "Doug" Medin (born June 13, 1944) is the

Louis W. Menk Louis Wilson Menk (April 8, 1918 - November 23, 1999) was an American railway worker and executive. He served as the last president of Northern Pacific Railway 1966-1970, before the railroad was merged into Burlington Northern Railroad, and the ...

Professor Emeritus of Psychology at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...

. He is also Professor Emeritus of Education and Social Policy.

Early life and education

Medin first became interested in psychology when he was an eighth-grader in

Algona, Iowa Algona is the county seat of Kossuth County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,487 at the 2020 census. Ambrose A. Call State Park is located two miles southwest of the city. History Algona was founded in 1854 and was named after the A ...

. During this time, he and his classmates were sorted into two groups depending on their singing abilities; Medin was assigned to the non-singers' group. He attended Moorhead State College, graduating in 1965 with a B.A. in psychology, and went on to receive his M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from the

University of South Dakota The University of South Dakota (USD) is a public research university in Vermillion, South Dakota. Established by the Dakota Territory legislature in 1862, 27 years before the establishment of the state of South Dakota, USD is the flagship univ ...

in 1966 and 1968, respectively. His Ph.D. thesis focused on the way that

rhesus monkey The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...

s perceive shapes.

Career

Medin joined

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...

in 1968 as a

postdoctoral fellow A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

, where he became an assistant professor the following year. He remained at Rockefeller until 1978, when he joined the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

as an associate professor. He joined the faculty of the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1989, and remained there for three years until joining the faculty of Northwestern University in 1992, because it "held better professional opportunities for his wife, Linda Powers," according to a profile of Medin in the ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Sci ...

''.

Research

Medin is best known for his research on concepts and categorization. He has also studied the "role of expertise and culture in the conceptual organization of biological categories."

Honors and awards

Medin was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2002, and into the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 2005.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Medin, Douglas L. Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people Northwestern University faculty 21st-century American psychologists Minnesota State University Moorhead alumni University of South Dakota alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society 1944 births People from Algona, Iowa Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences University of Michigan faculty 20th-century American psychologists