Robert S. Siegler (born 12 May 1949) is an American psychologist and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He is a recipient of the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

's 2005 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. He specializes in the

cognitive development Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of the developed adult bra ...

of problem solving and reasoning in children. Three areas of particular interest to his research are strategy choices, long-term learning, and educational applications of cognitive-developmental theory. He proposed the 'overlapping waves' model of cognitive development in 1996. Siegler received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in psychology from 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 Univer ...

in 1970 and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in psychology from SUNY Stony Brook in 1974, and he has been employed at Carnegie Mellon University until 2018, where he was a colleague of

Herbert A. Simon Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary ...

. In 2018, he started a faculty position at the

Teachers College A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

as the Jacob H Schiff Foundations Professor of Psychology & Education. Siegler has authored and co-authored several books on cognitive development, including ''How Children Discover New Strategies'', ''How Children Develop'', ''Children’s Thinking: 4th Edition'', and ''Emerging Minds'', which was chosen as one of the Best Psychology Books of 1996 by the

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercia ...

. He has also served as

associate editor An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the

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''Developmental Psychology''. He was a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel.National Mathematics Advisory Panel: Strengthening Math Education Through Research

References

External links

Bob Siegler's Homepage
1949 births Living people American developmental psychologists People from Chicago University of Illinois alumni Stony Brook University alumni Carnegie Mellon University faculty Cognitive development researchers American educational psychologists {{US-psychologist-stub