Robert Epstein

He went to Conard High School in West Hartford where he was first introduced to computer programming and hacking through the school's IBM 1620, one of the first computers owned by a US High School.

Epstein went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he majored in Psychology and also took classes in dance.

After receiving his B.A., Epstein moved to Israel to pursue his 'calling' to become a rabbi, where he worked on a kibbutz and studied at a yeshiva.

After six months, he decided to instead turn his attention back to psychology, after becoming enamored with the works of B. F. Skinner.

Robert Epstein (born June 19, 1953) is an American psychologist, professor, author, and journalist.

Epstein was born on June 19, 1953, in Hartford, Connecticut, into a Jewish family.

In 1976, Epstein enrolled in the Master's program of Community and Clinical Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

There he studied the experimental analysis of behavior under Professor A. Charles Catania.

While at graduate school, Epstein personally reached out to the then-retired B.F. Skinner, and convinced him to begin pigeon research again at the Psychology Department at Harvard University.

Epstein and Skinner began collaborating on several new research projects, and in the summer of 1977 Epstein was invited to become a full-time graduate student at Harvard.

While at Harvard in the 1980s, Epstein introduced the idea of "Generativity Theory", a quantitative, predictive theory of creativity in both animals and people, derived from research he had conducted with pigeons, children, and adults.

He was awarded a Ph.D. in psychology by Harvard University in 1981, was editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, and has held positions at several universities including Boston University, University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University.

He is also the founder and director emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Concord, MA.

In 1981, he earned a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Harvard without having to write a dissertation, owing to the amount of publications he had.

After receiving his PhD, Epstein founded the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in 1981.

For nine years, he served as the center's executive director while conducting research and teaching at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Northeastern University, Simmons College (Massachusetts), the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Boston University.

After leaving the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in 1990, he began to write for national magazines, such as Reader's Digest and Psychology Today, and he also began to talk about psychological research in segments of Voice of America and National Public Radio.

From 1990 to 1995, he directed the Loebner Prize Competition in Artificial Intelligence, an annual contest in which human intelligence is pitted against machine intelligence.

From 1998 to 2001 he hosted the national radio show Psychology Today Live.

During this time, he also held visiting posts at Keio University, Tokyo, and the HAL College of Technology and Design, at their Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo campuses in Japan.

For six years, he was also a researcher and Associate Investigator at the Center for Behavioral Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University.

Epstein also served as Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Department of Psychology at National University (California).

In 1999, he became the editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine, a position he held until 2003.

He then hosted the Sirius XM radio show Psyched! and contributed to media outlets such as Scientific American and Huffington Post.

During this time, he was also a Research Professor at Alliant International University and was a visiting scholar at the University of California San Diego.

His 2000 book, The Big Book of Creativity Games, includes exercises for increasing creativity.

In various writings, Epstein has been a strong advocate of the view that people can deliberately learn to love each other, and he has proposed a formal, predictive theory of how love grows in couples.

His theory is based in part on research he has conducted on how love arises in arranged marriages in multiple cultures worldwide.

An autobiographical essay documenting his long involvement with the media was published in 2006 in the academic journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

In 2012, he founded the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), a nonprofit organization that conducts research to promote the well-being and functioning of people worldwide.

Epstein has been a commentator for National Public Radio's Marketplace, the Voice of America, and Disney Online.

His popular writings have appeared in Reader's Digest, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times (London), Good Housekeeping, The New York Times, Parenting, and other magazines and newspapers.

Epstein is a public figure in the world of psychology.

He has published more than 350 articles and 15 books.

His online competency tests are taken by more than a million people a year.

In 2012, he co-founded the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT) in Vista, California, where he is currently Senior Research Psychologist.

In 2013, he moved to the Fiji Islands to serve as the first full Professor of Psychology at the University of the South Pacific, a position he held until 2015.

In 2013, he published a study summarizing this research.

At a class on intimate relationships he taught at University of California, San Diego, he gave extra credit to students for taking part in affection building exercises, and that class attracted national news coverage.

At one time, he used himself as an experimental subject to investigate this proposition, and he proposed that couples take control over their love lives by signing a Love Contract.