Jamie Campbell passed away suddenly on September 12, 2022 at the age of 69. He was one of the world’s most influential scholars in the field of mathematical cognition, professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, and a mentor and friend to many. Jamie received his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Waterloo, and his postdoctoral training at Carnegie Mellon University. He held an assistant professor appointment at the University of Western Ontario in 1986 before joining the University of Saskatchewan in 1990. He became a full professor in 1994 and retired in 2021. In his main area of cognitive skills, of which arithmetic was a sub-domain, his research shed shining lights on the processes of human memory, skills, education, bilingualism, and perception. Jamie’s keen intellect is reflected in his numerous meticulous experiments, which have built an important foundation for past and present research and will continue to influence research for many years to come. Jamie published 94 papers in top-tier peer-reviewed journals with over 8,000 citations and 10 book chapters or reviews, and gave 153 presentations across the world. He supervised 41 students from undergraduate to the post-doctoral level. His service to the academic community included membership on a great many national and international committees and editorial boards, and numerous public interviews. Despite all of that, he was a humble and generous man and scholar, who gave generously of his time, humour, and wit to any who were fortunate enough to know him. Jamie will be deeply missed. He is survived by his wife, Professor Valerie Thompson.

(written by Yalin Chen)

Doug Mewhort was born in Toronto and passed away in Kingston on February 28, 2019. His first passion was the French horn (A.R.C.T., 1960) and he played professionally in Toronto, Stratford, and Kingston. Doug studied Psychology at the University of Toronto (B.A. Hon, 1964) and the University of Waterloo (M.A., 1965; PhD, 1968) where he worked with Philip Bryden. Doug always claimed that psychology had “all the most interesting problems”. He joined the Psychology Department of Queen's University in 1968 and published extensively in the areas of Cognitive Psychology, Computational Modelling, and Statistics. In keeping with his good humour and his computational approach to psychology, one of his favourite sayings was “single malt, double precision”. His service to the academic community included Editor of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, Associate Editor for Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung, Consulting Editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, and Director Representing Science on the Canadian Psychological Association’s Governing Board. He was an inaugural Fellow and past President of CSBBCS and the 2019 recipient of the CSBBCS Donald O. Hebb Distinguished Contribution Award.

More information about Doug can be found here.

(written by Bill Hockley)

Bruce Whittlesea passed away on July 11, 2018 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. After completing his doctoral degree under the supervision of Lee Brooks at McMaster University, Bruce briefly held faculty positions at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. He then spent 20 years as a member of the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, retiring from that position in 2009. Bruce was a memory researcher, but he considered himself a scientist of the mind and all that minds can do. It was his fervent conviction that representations of particular experiences in memory, in dynamic interaction with the current task and stimulus environment, was the sole driving force behind all thought, behavior, and feeling states. He proposed that, through this interaction, the contents of memory serve two functions: production (the generation of thoughts, feelings, and actions) and evaluation (causal inferences about what happens during acts of production). He articulated these views in a framework called the SCAPE (Selective Construction and Preservation of Experience) Account of Memory. His death represents the loss of one of the most passionate and creative minds that ever made a serious attempt to understand itself.

(written by Jason Leboe-McGowan)