ARNOLD TREHUB

TREHUB, Arnold Amherst, Arnold Trehub, 93, of the Applewood Retirement Community in Amherst, died peacefully at home on Monday, April 3, 2017. He was born in Malden, Massachusetts on October 19, 1923 to Clarence and Rose Trehub (nee Issner). His parents had emigrated from Russia to the United States in the early 20th century and settled in Boston. He and his older brother George were raised—on Evelyn Street, in Mattapan—by their mother and an aunt after the death of their father during the Great Depression. Trehub graduated from Roxbury Memorial High School and was in his freshman year at Northeastern University at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces the following year and received basic and specialized training in New Jersey, Georgia, Kansas, and Oklahoma, during which time he was a PT instructor and boxed welterweight for his unit. He shipped out in 1944 and served for the duration of the war in the Pacific Theater as a radio technician working on B-29 Superfortress bombers with the 358th Air Service Group/509th Composite Group, 313th Bombardment Wing, 504th Bombardment Group of the 20th Air Force, based on the island of Tinian in the Marianas. Among the aircraft he worked on were the Enola Gay and Bockscar—the planes that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was honorably discharged from the USAAF in 1946 with the rank of sergeant. Trehub continued his education after the war at Northeastern University, graduating in 1948 with a B.A. He married Elaine Epstein in 1950, shortly after her graduation from Radcliffe College. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Boston University in 1954. That same year he accepted a position as the director of a small research laboratory at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Leeds, Massachusetts and moved with his wife to Amherst, where they were both among the founders of the Jewish Community of Amherst (JCA). He also held an adjunct faculty appointment in the Psychology Department at the University of Massachusetts. He retired from government service in 1982 but continued working in his field as an independent researcher. In his long career as a cognitive scientist, Trehub authored numerous publications on the neurophysiology of the human brain and the nature of consciousness, including "Neuronal Models for Cognitive Processes: Networks for Learning, Perception, and Imagination" (Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1977); The Cognitive Brain (MIT Press, 1991); "Space, Self, and the Theater of Consciousness" (Consciousness and Cognition, 2007); and "Evolution's Gift: Subjectivity and the Phenomenal World" (in Consciousness and the Universe: Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind, 2011). An early adopter of the Web, he was an active participant in online scientific discussion forums until the very end of his life. Under the pseudonym Ben Chassiel, Trehub was also an accomplished artist, designing polarized light ("heliokinetic") collages that can be seen in the collections of the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College and the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts. Trehub loved his family, his country, art, cognitive science, the ocean, lobster bisque, and the New England Patriots. Like many men of his generation, he disliked military discipline but was intensely proud of having served. He was preceded in death by his parents, his brother George, and his daughter Lorna. He is survived by Elaine, his wife of sixty-six years; his son Craig of Amherst; and his son Aaron of Opelika, Alabama. Private funeral services have been held. A memorial service will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, well-wishers are asked to make contributions to the Northeastern University Libraries, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Libraries, or a library of their choice. Memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

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