George M. Robinson(Erdős Number = 3) holds a degree in Physics from Cornell University. He worked in the Physics Department at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and served as head of the Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning Department. He later earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago specializing in Cognition and Psycholinguistics. He also completed the Clinical Psychology Training program and had his clinical supervision at the University of Chicago Hospital & Clinics and Chicago Children's Memorial Hospital.
He's taught at the University of Chicago, Duke University (where he was head of the Interdepartmental Committee on Linguistics) and Temple University before coming to Smith. During 1986-87 he was Visiting Professor of Linguistics at Central China University.
His cognitive teaching includes psycholinguistics, thinking & problem solving, perception, and memory; and in the clinical area, courses on personality, motivation theory, fear, literature, humor, and statistics.
He's published books on Psycholinguistics, Ethical Problems in Higher Education, and Chinese University life, and a paper that helped the American Psychological Association defend the requirement of non-sexist language in its publications. Some of his other papers are on rhythmic structures in speech, visual illusions, research fraud, language acquisition, and robots that learn language. His current research interests include: discovering why people believe in supernatural/paranormal phenomena and developing a program to undermine these beliefs; the psychology of scientific discovery, how people learn truths from fiction, research ethics & fraud, perception of morphed faces, and inappropriate guilt.
He's a Licensed Psychologist Health Care Provider and has a small psychotherapy practice, is a Sessions House Fellow, guest lectures at the Springfield Expeditionary Learning School and Shanghai Normal University, collects Ghanaian paintings, spends a month each year in China, writes fiction, and plays soccer. His adventures include: being in East Berlin with US Army intelligence officers the day before the big demonstration that brought down the Berlin Wall; being interrogated by Chinese Security Police about the student protests before the Tiananmen disaster; getting onto the Minas Tirith set for the Lord of the Rings movies; jet-boating the Shotover River; Zip-lining the jungle canopy in Costa Rica; gathering bullets from the street to melt down to counterweight harpsichord keys; saving a busload of people from a crash in rural Thailand; setting up a computer for the 1st Secretary of the Danish Embassy in Accra; dancing with Uighurs on a Chang Jiang Riverboat; riding horses with a stuntman who doubled a Nazgul; and some other things you can’t know about.
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