Faculty Profiles
Top National Honors Bestowed on Distinguished Psychology Researcher and Teacher
Motivation is the key to success. For Rachel Keen, professor of developmental psychology who was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences along with luminaries like former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, her motivation to study child behavior can be traced to her rural Kentucky childhood. Keen, one of the world’s leading experts on perceptual-motor development in infants and young children, relates, “My mother, an elementary school teacher, conveyed pleasure and fascination with children. She was also keenly sensitive to infant behavior. I remember her coming back from a visit with a friend who had just given birth. She said the baby was ‘not right’—jerky movements of head and limbs, a cry that was too high pitched, and the inability to get his hand to his mouth. Others discounted her observation, but she was right. The child grew, but never learned to talk and required round-the-clock care. That newborn behavior could predict mental development years later made a deep impression on me.”
When Keen went to the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota for graduate school, she took a course on infant development, and was hooked. “I modeled my dissertation after Brohnshtein’s work,” she says. “The idea was to explore the newborns’ sensory world, a novel concept in 1962.” That period marked the beginning of an explosion in infancy research that is still going on. “We knew so little about newborns’ behavior and sensory capabilities then. What seems to have come together in the 1960s,” says Keen, “is new methodology, new technology, and new ideas.”
For fifteen years, Keen concentrated on newborns, including premature infants. From cardiac orienting, habituation and conditioning, she shifted her focus in the mid-1970s to auditory perception. And by the late 1980s she redirected her sights again, to reaching and cognition. But through it all, Keen has been the consummate leader in her field. “I love science,” she says without hesitation. “I have good intuition about what makes a good experiment and a good question. And I find it easy and very enjoyable to work with students and colleagues on research projects. My research is ‘basic,’ not aimed at answering a practical question. But in the 40 years that I have been researching infants, the field has advanced knowledge so that the lay public now understands and appreciates infants’ behaviors and emotions much, much better.”
The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass Amherst became Keen’s research base when then-husband Charles Clifton, also in psychology, landed a job in 1968. “I was a part-time, non-tenure track faculty for twelve years before going full-time and receiving tenure,” she tells. “In fact, I had already been promoted to full professor in 1976 because I had continuous grant support since 1969, had been associate editor on two journals, and had served on a study section at National Institutes of Health (NIH).”
A former president of the International Society on Infant Studies and former editor of the Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Keen last year received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the prestigious Society for Research in Child Development. Also in 2005 her MERIT award from NIH was renewed. “To receive a MERIT award to begin with,” says department chair Melinda Novak, “one must have a strong record of continuous support and be in the upper one-to-two percent of the funded grants. Rachel’s MERIT award, in place since 1999, puts her at the very top of her discipline. And the fact that she has been continuously funded by NIH/NSF since 1969 is a remarkable achievement, especially in light of several extremely lean periods of funding during these 37 years. Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is a wonderful recognition of her outstanding achievements and brings added distinction to the psychology department where she plans to continue her research and teaching.”
Outside of the lab, Keen has interests that add balance and dimension to her life. “Right now my greatest pleasure in life is playing with my granddaughter who is almost three years old. Also, I take piano lessons—a great joy. I practice every day that I’m not traveling. And I am passionate about saving farmland, woodland and wildlife—currently working on preserving 36 acres in North Amherst from development into 26 lots. I’ve been active in the North Congregational Church too, an important part of the North Amherst community.” But Keen’s main focus remains with her profession. “We have a very strong faculty in the psychology department here at UMass Amherst,” she acknowledges. “Undergraduates have many opportunities to work with excellent faculty, doing exciting research—and we welcome those who want to learn firsthand what doing research is like. We care about teaching—many have national reputations, and many hold grants to fund research.”
June 5, 2006
