Stewart Hulse, professor emeritus in the Department of Psychological
and Brain Sciences and
former chairman of that department, died on Aug. 31 of
pneumonia at Union Memorial Hospital in
Baltimore. He was 77.
An experimental psychologist trained in the field of
animal learning, Hulse is considered one of
the founders of the field of animal cognition, which
recognizes that animals not only respond to overt
stimuli but also are capable of internal mental
processes.
A 1953 graduate of Williams College, Hulse earned his
doctorate at Brown University in 1957.
He came to Johns Hopkins the same year and spent his entire
professional working life on the
Homewood campus, serving as chair of the department from
1987 to 1990. He became professor
emeritus in 1999.
During Hulse's tenure at Johns Hopkins, his interest
in acoustic perception in birds and humans
grew, and he offered a popular graduate-level course called
the Psychology of Sound and Music that
led him to make many close connections with faculty at the
Peabody Institute.
Hulse was a fellow of numerous organizations,
including the Society of Experimental
Psychologists, American Association for the Advancement of
Science and American Psychological
Association. He was a charter fellow of the American
Psychological Society and served as chair of the
Psychonomic Society. He also was a member of many other
professional organizations in the fields of
animal behavior, psychology, music, cognition and
neuroscience.
In 1985, Hulse was awarded the National Institute of
Mental Health's Senior NRSA Fellowship,
and in 2002, he received the first Comparative Cognition
Society Research Award. He was editor in
chief of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal
Behavior Processes and authored many books,
including The Comparative Psychology of Audition:
Perceiving Complex Sounds, which was published in
1989.
An avid golfer and accomplished pianist, Hulse also
reportedly was a talented writer whose
family members encouraged him to write "the great American
novel."
He is survived by his wife, the former Nancy Huppertz,
whom he married in 1954; three
children, Stephen V. Hulse, Jennifer Hulse Mitchell and
Melissa C. Hulse; and five grandchildren.
A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. on
Saturday, Oct. 4, at the Bunting-Meyerhoff
Interfaith and Community Service Center. A reception will
follow at the Johns Hopkins Club.
The family requests that memorial donations be sent to
Hulse 1953 Fund, Williams College,
Alumni Relations Department, 75 Park St., Williamstown, MA
01267.
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