Thomas Heinzen

Thomas Heinzen is Professor Emeritus of William Paterson University of New Jersey. He describes his career as “mostly fun” because of the diverse opportunities within social psychology. Most applications have revolved around the social psychology of creativity including:

• Individual differences among the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth
• Program Assessment for the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy
• Agent orange health statistics for the New York State Commission on Vietnam Veterans 
• Technology assessment related to distance learning for Public Service Training Program
• Tractor rollovers for the New York Center for Health and Medicine
• Documentations of problem-solving among pre-retirement New York State bureaucrats
• Documentations of problem-solving among the frail elderly living in nursing homes
• Applications of game design to curriculum development 

Professor Heinzen invested in students’ lives by mentoring more than 60 student conference presentations. More recently, he created video games that teach critical thinking and the unwritten rules of college success. 

He also has authored several books and published journal articles based on case studies, archival analyses, in-depth interviews, controlled experiments, and quasi-experimental designs. He has been elected a fellow of the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA), the American Psychological Association (APA, Division 1), and the Association for Psychological Science (APS).