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Heads of department

	Professor C A Mace, 1944 - 1961 Professor C A Mace was appointed to the Chair in 1944. Mace's research embraced psychology of skill, thinking and creativity, psychology of aesthetics, the structure of organizations, and philosophy of mind. Crucially for the development of Psychology at Birkbeck, much of his research was applied.
	Professor A Summerfield, 1961 - 1987 Arthur Summerfield was appointed to the Chair in Psychology and Head of Department in 1961. Funding from the MRC and US sources to Arthur Summerfield, Daphne Joyce and Harry Hurwitz facilitated the introduction of psychopharmacological research using animals in the Department. Over the period of Arthur Summerfield's headship several prizes for examination performance were introduced. Arthur Summerfield retired in 1988 handing on a department that had increased substantially in size and was successful in both teaching and research.
	Dr Paul Barber, 1987 - 1991 Dr Paul Barber was employed at Birkbeck for over 30 years and taught courses on perception, psychological statistics and experimental design, computing and ergonomics, supervised 16 PhD students. His own doctoral research was on visual input processes. Now Emeritus Reader in Psychology at Birkbeck, he is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychology Society and a Chartered Psychologist.
	Professor W Marslen-Wilson, 1991 - 1995 Professor William Marslen-Wilson was Head of Department from 1991 to 1995. He joined the Department from Cambridge, bringing with him extensive expertise in the cognitive science and neuroscience of language.
	Dr Simon Green, 1995 - 2005 Dr Simon Green began his research career investigating links between brain neurotransmitters and anxiety/fear in animals, with a focus on the central effects of drugs used in the treatment of human clinical anxiety. Dr Simon Green is now a member of the Department of Psychological Sciences. View Dr Simon Green's full profile.
	Professor Mike Oaksford, 2005 - Present Professor Mike Oaksford is the current Head of Department. His research interests include Bayesian/rational models of human reasoning and argumentation, including data selection, conditional inference, syllogistic reasoning, causal reasoning, 'fallacies' of argumentation, and the effect of experienced and anticipated emotion on reasoning. View Professor Oaksford's full profile.