bulletin Help People AZ Search Home
The University of Sussex

Press Office   Contents    Press Office   Next Article

Obituary

Marie Jahoda

Marie Jahoda, Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex and an outstanding social psychologist, died on 28 April. She was born in Vienna in 1907 and in her long and eventful life as a researcher, writer and teacher she inspired successive generations of students and colleagues with her humanistic ideals, her kindliness and her devotion to scientific methods in social research. Throughout her career she focused on social issues, such as nationalism, anti-Semitism and the impacts of poverty and unemployment.

Marie was no armchair philosopher. As a staunch anti-fascist and Social Democrat she came into collision with the repressive Austrian government already before Hitler's Anschluss. This led to a period of imprisonment between 1936 and 1937 but, fortunately, she was released on the condition that she left the country. She came to England and after the war, she emigrated to the United States, where she established herself in academic life and became a Professor of Social Psychology at New York University.

She proved an ideal person for the University of Sussex to recruit in the early 1960s. For nearly 40 years, she remained the embodiment of the Sussex ideal of interdisciplinary research and teaching and played a full part in the academic life of the University and of its governance.

After her official 'retirement' at the age of 65, Marie began a new period of very active creative work, choosing to participate in the interdisciplinary research of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU). She made major contributions to research programmes on social and technological forecasting and in another programme, she was able to return to the problem that was her first love as a young researcher: the social psychological consequences of prolonged unemployment.

Her work was recognised with the prestigious Kurt Lewin Memorial Award by the American Psychological Association and she was belatedly honoured by the German Social Democratic Party and by the Austrian Social Democratic government. The University awarded Marie an honorary degree in 1973 and she was made a CBE a year later.

Chris Freeman

 

Press Office   Contents    Press Office   Next Article

Friday 11 May 2001

 

Publication Details
Page Created By: USIS on behalf of the Press and Communications Office, Sussex House, ext 8609/8209,
Email: internalcomms@sussex.ac.uk