Professor, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
Nominee: John D. Bransford
Steven Yussen has a 35–year history in higher education, spanning work as a professor of Educational Psychology, Psychology, and Child Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Iowa, and the University of Minnesota. At two of the universities, he also served for 16 years as dean of their Colleges of Education, from 1991–1998 (Iowa) and 1998–2006 (Minnesota). As dean, he hired more than 100 faculty, raised $30 million in private fundraising efforts, and (at Minnesota) led a unit with 500 faculty and staff. At Wisconsin, he also served as chairperson of the Department of Educational Psychology (1984–1987). Dr. Yussen has published more than 70 scholarly research articles, book chapters, and books in the field of developmental and educational psychology, and he is particularly well known for his work on cognitive development, memory, and reading comprehension. His honors include: service as Associate Editor of two major journals —Child Development and Journal of Educational Psychology; selection as a Guggenheim Fellow; appointment as a Fulbright Fellow at the Hebrew University; selection as a Spencer Fellow; election to the Iowa Academy of Education; and service on the boards of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, the Holmes Group (Midwest Vice President), the Great Cities’ Council of Deans (Vice President), the Iowa Business, Education, and Labor Roundtable, and the Minnesota PreK–16 Statewide Education Partnership. He has supervised twenty Ph.D. students and more than forty master’s students, and the five editions of his widely read textbook of Child Development, co-authoried with J. Santrock, were read by more that 200,000 students worldwide. He earned his doctorate in child psychology from the University of Minnesota.
