| Paul Bloom | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 24, 1963 Montreal, Quebec |
| Residence | New Haven, Connecticut |
| Citizenship | U.S., Canadian |
| Fields | Psychology |
| Institutions | Yale University, University of Arizona |
| Alma mater | MIT, McGill University |
| Doctoral advisor | Susan Carey |
Paul Bloom (born December 1963) is a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on language, morality, religion, fiction, and art.
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Bloom was born in Montreal, Quebec. As an undergraduate he attended McGill University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (with honors first class) in 1985. He attended graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology in 1990, under the supervision of Susan Carey.
From 1990-1999, he taught Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. Since 1999, he has been a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University.
Since 2003, Bloom has served as co-editor in chief of the scientific journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
Bloom is married to the psychologist Karen Wynn, a noted infant researcher who is also a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. They have two sons.[1]
Bloom has held a number of distinguished visiting professorships, including the Harris Visiting Professorship at the Harris Center for Developmental Studies at the University of Chicago (2002); the Nijmegen Lectureship at the Max Planck Institute at the University of Nijmegen (2006); the Templeton Lectureship at Johns Hopkins University (2007-8); and the Visiting Distinguished SAGE Fellowship at the UCSB SAGE Center for the Study of Mind (2010).
In 2003, the Society for Philosophy and Psychology awarded Bloom the Stanton Prize for outstanding early-career contributions to interdisciplinary research in Philosophy and Psychology, and in 2005-6, he served as the Society’s President. In 2006, he was made a Fellow of the American Psychological Society in recognition of his “sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology.”
In 2004, he received the Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences at Yale University. In 2007, his Introduction to Psychology class was selected as an outstanding Yale course to be made available worldwide through the Open Yale Courses initiative.
Bloom is the author of three books and editor or co-editor of three others. His scientific work has appeared in journals such as Nature and Science, and his popular writing has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The American Scientist, Slate and The Atlantic (His article in The Atlantic, "Is God an Accident?" was included in The Best American Science Writing 2006). He has had regular appearances on National Public Radio and Bloggingheads.tv.