Dr. John R. Nesselroade

1936 - 2024

Dr. John R. Nesselroade

March 13, 1936 - July 24, 2024

Dr. John R. Nesselroade passed away peacefully at home on, July 24, 2024. He was a loving and devoted husband, father, grandfather, and sibling. He encouraged his two daughters to believe that they could do and be anything they chose, and he was handsomely rewarded with two grandsons. He was also a non-judgmental listener, trustworthy confidante and provider of sage, solicited advice to family, friends, students, and colleagues throughout his life.

He was born on Friday, March 13, 1936, in Jackson County, WV, the second of six children of John and Emma (Suck) Nesselroade. After graduating from Parkersburg High School in 1954, he enlisted in the United States Marines and was stationed in Japan during his service. He married his sweetheart, Carolyn Sue Boyles, in 1959. They had one daughter while he was earning his BS degree in Mathematics from Marietta College. Their second daughter was born while he pursued MA and PhD degrees in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied under Dr. Raymond B. Cattell.

After John received his Ph.D. in 1967, he held research, teaching, and administrative positions at West Virginia University and The Pennsylvania State University. He also served as a visiting senior fellow with the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, in Berlin. In 1991. He began his tenure at the University of Virginia as the Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor of Psychology, retiring from formal teaching in 2010. He was founder and director of U.VA.'s Center for Developmental and Health Research Methodology, a leading training program for undergraduate through postgraduate education in quantitative research methods that relate to process and change. He also founded and directed the U.VA. section of the Max Planck International Research School on the Life Course.

He was a cherished friend to students and colleagues around the world for more than a half-century and continued to mentor students and to innovate and collaborate on research and publications with students and colleagues until his death. He adapted his style of mentoring to each student, looking to provide what the student needed at each phase of their studies. His students were taught that their own needs and career course would likely change over time, saying, "Nothing is written in stone."

In the scientific community, John was best known for his contributions to methodology for the study of development. He was an early advocate of the study of developmental change through repeated measurements and the need for studying, not only how people's traits differed from each other, but also how people differed in the way that they changed. He called this perspective "individual differences in intraindividual change." This led him to study topics such as dynamical systems theory, seemingly far afield from psychology. His writings are widely read, in part, because he could explain complicated topics in succinct and memorable language. For instance, he described the complex interplay between slowly adapting traits and the dynamics of day to day change as "the warp and woof of the developmental fabric."

Among his professional accomplishments, he was awarded the highest honor given by the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology, the Saul Sells Award for Lifetime Contributions to Multivariate Experimental Psychology, in 2003. The Gerontological Society of America awarded John a Distinguished Career Contribution Award in 2003 and the Kleemeier Award for outstanding research in the field of gerontology in 2006. In 2010 he was awarded an honorary PhD from Humboldt University in Berlin, an award only given to six others before him. He delivered the Anastasi Lecture at Fordham University in 2013 and was awarded the Samuel J. Messick Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Educational Testing Service in 2015. He has been named a fellow of several prestigious associations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Society, and the American Psychological Association. Of greater significance to John, he was able to witness the rising careers of many of his graduate students over several decades.

John was an avid golfer until recently. He kept his Corvette in tip-top condition. A lifetime learner, he built a 16-foot, fiber glass, sloop rigged sailboat, rebuilt a player piano, and played 5-string banjo in a bluegrass band. He created a stone masonry deck and had recently taught himself to play several chords of Boogie woogie blues on the piano.

He is survived by his wife of 65 years, Carolyn; his daughters, Cindy (Tom) Mirabella of Ocean, NJ and Jen (John) McNeil of Ringoes, NJ; his grandsons, Jonathan (Christina) McNeil of Summit, NJ and Colin McNeil of New York, NY. He is also survived by his beloved siblings: Dale (Bonnie) Nesselroade of Parkersburg, WV, the Reverend Kenneth (Dee) Nesselroade of Fort Myers, FL, Dr. David (Julianne) Nesselroade of Fort Myers, FL and Nancy (Gary) Kent of Statesboro, GA, who will doubtlessly miss his weekly missive of one dozen fresh limericks, and by many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents, the Reverend John S. and Emma Nesselroade and his brother Edward T. Nesselroade.

A celebration of John's life will be scheduled in the future.

Cremation Society of Virginia