Nicholas Christenfeld is a former professor of

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

until his dismissal in 2019. He first joined the department in 1991 and was a full professor from 2003 to 2019. Among other research, he has promulgated the Theory of Deadly Initials and the theory that infants resemble their fathers more closely than they do their mothers. More recently, he studied the tendency of people to choose purebred dogs which resembled them.

Education

*1991 Ph.D.

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Thesis: Speech Disfluencies and the Effects of Mazes, Motives, and Metronomes. *1989 M.Phil. Columbia University. *1988 M.A. Columbia University. Thesis: Predicting Stock Market Predictions. *1985 B.A.

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

, cum laude with Highest Honors in Psychology.

Title IX Investigations and Dismissal

Christenfeld was fired from his tenured professorship and stripped of emeritus status after a year-long investigation found he had violated

Title IX Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receiv ...

by mistakenly emailing a female student pornography in 2018. He had previously been the subject of five separate complaints, including substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct on university property and undisclosed romantic relationships with students. However, the university determined none of the prior complaints warranted significant disciplinary action.

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American psychologists University of California, San Diego faculty Harvard College alumni Columbia University alumni {{US-psychologist-stub