The 2014 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award honoring emeriti professors in the University of California system has been awarded to Norman Anderson, UC San Diego professor emeritus of psychology, and Rein Taagepera, UC Irvine professor emeritus of political science. Taagepera and Anderson are the 32nd and 33rd UC emeriti professors to receive the award. Both awardees have especially long and notable records of research, teaching, and service to the University of California, their disciplines and their communities.
Professor Anderson was a founding member of UC San Diego’s department of psychology, joining the department in 1965, after beginning his UC career at UCLA in 1958. He is an experimental psychologist whose contributions span social psychology and cognition, and he is best known for his development of information integration theory. He formally retired in 1992, but his four books published since that date attest that his research and scholarship continued unabated. He also continues to mentor graduate students and contribute to his department and his discipline. Anderson's post-retirement work in support of graduate student life and research has been especially notable, including establishment of the Norman Anderson Lecture series in the UC San Diego department of psychology.
Professor Taagepera joined UC Irvine’s department of political science in 1970 following a shift from his initial career as a physicist. He is an internationally renowned expert in political parties and systems, and the recipient of the Johan Skytte Prize, often considered political science’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize. He formally retired in 1994, but has continued to publish, teach and serve both UC and Tartu University in his native Estonia, where he served as founding dean of social sciences. His combination of empirical and theoretical publications in addition to the outstanding academic leadership at Tartu University for the past 25 years constitute a remarkable third career: first a physicist, then at UC Irvine as an innovator in political science, and then as the founder and sponsor of modern political science in post-Soviet Estonia.
The Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award is named for the late professor of sociology at UCLA, who has been described as the architect of the UC Retirement System. Panunzio was particularly active in improving pensions and stipends for his fellow emeriti. The award bearing his name was established in 1983 and includes a $5,000 prize.