Nicholas Christenfeld

Nicholas Christenfeld
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University, Harvard College
Known for	Theory of Deadly Initials, research on infant resemblance to fathers, dog-owner resemblance
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	University of California, San Diego
Thesis	Speech Disfluencies and the Effects of Mazes, Motives, and Metronomes

Nicholas Christenfeld is a former professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego until 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. ^[1] More recently, he studied the tendency of people to choose purebred dogs which resembled them. ^[2]

Education

• 1991 Ph.D. Columbia University. 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, cum laude with Highest Honors in Psychology.

Title IX Investigations and Dismissal

Christenfeld was dismissed from his tenured professorship and stripped of emeritus status after a year-long investigation found he had violated Title IX by mistakenly emailing a female student pornography in 2018. He had previously been the subject of unsubstantiated allegations of faculty misconduct which the university determined did not merit disciplinary action. ^[3] <ref>{{Cite web |title=Christenfeld v. Regents of the University of Cal. CA1/1, A162690 (Cal. Ct. App. 2022)

References

1. Christenfeld, N., & Hill, E.A. (1995). Whose baby are you? Nature , 378, 669
2. Roy, M; N. Christenfeld (2004). "Do dogs resemble their owners?". Psychological Science . 15 (5): 361–363. doi:10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00684.x. PMID   15102149. S2CID   12531734.
3. Coston, Ethan (17 February 2021). "A UCSD Professor Sent a Student Porn. Here's Why it Took a Year to Fire Him". Voice of San Diego. Retrieved 17 February 2021.