Eleanor Revelle's campaign web page

William Revelle's academic and personal vita

Although my academic vita discusses my teaching and research, it leaves out some background which might or might not be interesting.

I was born in Washington, D.C., raised in La Jolla, California, educated at Pomona College and the University of Michigan, lived in Nanga Medamit, Sarawak, Malaysia as well as Oxford, England and have been a resident of Evanston, Illinois since 1973.

Although a long time resident of Evanston, I was raised in La Jolla where I tended to spend too much time on the beach as a want to be board surfer or racing Flying Dutchmen.

While in high school and college, I spent three summers on oceanographic expeditions exploring the Pacific on some fairly small ships of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The first was the R/V Stranger as it started off on the Naga expedition from San Diego to Thailand in June, 1959. The second was on the R/V Hugh M. Smith from San Diego to Point Barrow in 1960, and the third was on the R/V Spencer F. Baird from Fiji to Kwajalein to Samoa to Hawaii in 1962. It was on that last expedition that I saw a high altitude nuclear test (over Johnson Island) from roughly 1500 miles away. This might well have led to my long term concerns over the dangers of nuclear war.

After three years doing math (the best of the liberal arts majors) and then spending an exciting summer working at the UCSD computer center teaching a CDC 1604 to do algebraic simplification (badly), I took some psychology courses to learn how to teach computers to think. Based partly upon my interest in computer science and partly on my desire not to do weapons research, I decided to switch to psychology in my senior year. After I finished in psychology at Pomona College, Eleanor and I were married and then spent two years in Sarawak, Malaysia teaching primary school as Peace Corps Volunteers. We then both went to graduate school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where our two sons were born.

For a somewhat discursive discussion about how I became a personality psychologist, see the answers I gave a group of undergraduates from Effat University.

I now like to sail Lasers and Laser IIs on (and sometime in) Lake Michigan. I have been known to visit the occasional Ultimate Frisbee match when it is convenient.

I also spend some time browsing the The Source, the San Diego Daily Transcript's information source of San Diego and the world. 20 years ago, when the web was very new, I became interested in exploring the ways that the web can increase citizen participation by increasing public access to information using projects such as that of the League of Women Voters or the Federation of American Scientists.. The civic participation page written then is kept as an indication of how far the web has progressed.

For a discussion of the way that the web can used for informing the public, see the Cyberstrategy[tm] discussion by John Pike of the FAS. Other examples of use of the web for encouraging active citizen involvement are also available.

Another long ago use of the web was in linking distant relatives together through genealogical research. These pages have not been updated in 12 years but are kept for those interested.

Like any thoughtful person, I am deeply concerned about various threats to the future of the world. These threats which include climate change, nuclear weapons, and advances in biology are best captured in the pages of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. At a more local level, Eleanor and I (primarily Eleanor) are involved with Citizens for a Greener Evanston.

Revelle-Scripps genealogy

Parts of the Clark-Scripps--Revelle-Dougan families have been North America since about 1630-1640. They were coopers, farmers, accused witches, oysterfishermen, lawyers, newspaper publishers, and educators. These pages are a small attempt to organize part of their diverse history. The pages are structured with "name" anchors to facilitate others using selected parts of the pages.

For information on the descendants of Randall Revelle, Rebecca Towne Nurse, or James Mogg Scripps, please go to the genealogy pages.

An energy efficient home

This is a set of pages discussing how we built a relatively (for the early 21st century) energy efficient home. It consists of two different versions. One was the original version written as series of notes in the process of building our new house (2001-2003). The second is a more thoughtful discussion (written by Eleanor) of various issues involved in building such a house. The design and construction of a new house according to environmentally thoughtful, sustainable, "green" practices offers many rewards but entails a variety of ironies, compromises, frustrations and practical problems as well. This website is intended to document the process involved and lessons learned in building this lakeside house in Evanston, Illinois. The owners, architect and builder hope to encourage and assist other owners, architects and builders with "green" intentions who are considering a project in this direction.

The Personality Project

Personality, Motivation and Cognition Laboratory

The SAPA project Scientific objectives: are to

1. To gain an increased understanding of the ways in which personality and situational determinants of motivation combine to influence motivational states, and how these motivational states in turn affect cognitive processes to determine cognitive performance.
2. To understand the structure of human personality at multiple levels of analysis, including within individual, between individual, and between self selected aggregates of individuals.

Methods:

1. Experimental studies of the effect of various motivational manipulations on cognitive performance.
2. Web based data collection using Synthetic Aperture Personality Assessment (SAPA) techniques to examine the structure of large number of temperament, ability, and interest items from people around the world.
3. Using other telemetric techniques to examine the structure of affect, cognition and desire as they relate to behavior within individuals across time.
4. Development of open source programs and materials to facilitate these goals.