Jeffrey Scott Tanaka (1958 November 3, 1992) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

and

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

, known for his work in

educational psychology Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive psychology, cognitive and behavioral psychology, behavioral perspectives, allows researc ...

social psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...

and various fields of statistics including

structural equation modeling Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a diverse set of methods used by scientists for both observational and experimental research. SEM is used mostly in the social and behavioral science fields, but it is also used in epidemiology, business, ...

Biography

Tanaka was born in Los Angeles in 1958 to parents Margaret and Shoji Tanaka. In 1979, Tanaka received an A.B. (

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

) in

quantitative psychology Quantitative psychology is a field of scientific study that focuses on the mathematical modeling, research design and methodology, and statistical analysis of psychological processes. It includes tests and other devices for measuring cognitive a ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, followed by an M.A. in psychology in 1980 and a PhD in

psychometrics Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally covers specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and rela ...

in 1984. His professional academic career began at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

(NYU), where he was assistant professor of psychology from 1983. In 1990, he joined the

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the fou ...

as associate professor while continuing his career at NYU as visiting research associate professor. Tanaka applied himself in a wide range of fields. As a psychologist, he worked in social psychology, educational psychology and

cognition Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

. In statistics, his research interests included structural equation modeling,

factor analysis Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. For example, it is possible that variations in six observe ...

and categorical data analysis. On November 3, 1992, Tanaka died in an automobile accident near Bondville, Illinois at the age of 34.

Legacy

Due to his work with the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...

(APA) in raising awareness for ethnic minority issues in academia (Tanaka was an ethnic minority himself), the APA named their ''Jeffrey S. Tanaka Dissertation Award'' in his memory. In 1993, the

Journal of Personality The ''Journal of Personality'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering personality psychology. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell and the editor-in-chief is Howard Tennen ( University of Connecticut). The journal covers research on ...

started to run a series of papers titled ''The Jeffrey S. Tanaka Occasional Papers in Quantitative Methods for Personality'' in Tanaka's memory. As of 2011, papers were still being written for the series. In 1994, the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology introduced the ''Tanaka Award for Best Article in Multivariate Behavioral Research'', given annually to the authors of the most outstanding paper in the '' Multivariate Behavioral Research'' journal.

Publications

Selected academic works

The works below are listed by number of times cited (descending), according to data from

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

(correct as of January 2017). * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Jeffrey S. 1958 births 1992 deaths 20th-century American psychologists New York University faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Road incident deaths in Illinois