Daniel Lawrence Schacter

Dr. Daniel Lawrence Schacter is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Schacter’s research explores the relation between conscious and unconscious forms of memory, the nature of memory distortions, how individuals use memory to imagine possible future events, enhancement of online learning, as well as the effects of aging on memory. He has been one of the main contributors to the idea that memory is not a unitary entity, but instead consists of multiple forms or systems. Schacter and his many collaborators have published over 350 articles and chapters on these and related topics. He has received a number of awards for his research, including the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology in Human Learning and Cognition from the American Psychological Association (1990), the Troland Award (1991) and Award for Scientific Reviewing (2005) from National Academy of Sciences, a Guggenheim Fellowship (1998), a MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging (2000-2012) the Howard Crosby Warren Medal (2009) from the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions from the American Psychological Association (2012). Schacter also received Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize (1997). He has been elected to the Society of Experimental Psychologists (1994) and the National Academy of Sciences (2013), in addition to his American Academy of Arts and Science membership (1996). Many of Schacter’s ideas and findings are summarized in his 1996 book, Searching for Memory, and his 2001 book, The Seven Sins of Memory, both named as New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and winners of the APA’s William James Book Award. More recently, he has co-authored an introductory text, Psychology (2nd Ed., 2011), with Daniel T. Gilbert and Daniel M. Wegner.