Passing of Distinguished Professor Eileen Kowler

Dr. Eileen Kowler passed away on December 30, 2024. Eileen was a distinguished professor, whose dedication to research, service to the department, and contributions to the university and her field were truly exceptional. For over 40 years, we were fortunate to have her as a member of our faculty. To many, Eileen was far more than a colleague. She was a mentor, an advocate, a friend, and an inspirational leader. Eileen was a brilliant scientist, whose work on eye movements, attention, and visual perception was creative, far-ranging, and rigorous. After receiving her Ph.D. at U. Maryland - College Park in 1978, she was a postdoc at NYU, and then in 1980 joined the faculty at Rutgers, where she remained until her passing. At Rutgers, she always led our community, most conspicuously in group research and mentorship projects such as the NSF IGERT in Perceptual Science which she secured in 2006. Under her leadership, the PerSci project led to many fruitful and rewarding collaborations among psychologists and computer scientists at Rutgers, which continue to the present day. Beyond Rutgers, Eileen's contributions were widely recognized. She was a section editor Journal of Vision, and from 2021-2022 served as president of the Vision Sciences Society. She was elected to AAAS in 2013. One of Eileen's greatest passions was mentorship, especially of graduate students. Her efforts in this area were recognized in 2013 when VSS awarded her the inaugural Davida Teller award in recognition of both scholarship and mentorship. More recently she served as Senior Associate Dean of the graduate school at Rutgers, an office that allowed her to champion the interests of graduate students throughout the university. But her advocacy for younger colleagues was perhaps most keenly felt by her own students and junior colleagues, whose lives she touched in so many ways. Her loss is deeply felt, and it is difficult to imagine the department without her. Please click on this link to see her obituary. A graveside service will be held on Sunday, January 5, 2025, at 10:15 am, at Mount Sinai Cemetery, 374 Highway 79, Morganville, NJ, under the direction of MOUNT SINAI MEMORIAL CHAPELS, East Brunswick, NJ.