James Bruce Overmier earned degrees in Chemistry and Experimental Psychology and is now Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota (Graduate Faculties of Psychology, Neuroscience, Psychoneuroimmunology, and Cognitive Science).

Overmier received postdoctoral fellowships and awards including Scholar of the College Award (University of Minnesota, 1989), the Quad-L Award in Psychology (University of New Mexico,1999), and Clifford T. Morgan Distinguished Service Award in Behavioral Neuroscience & Comparative Psychology (2001), Minnesota Psychological Association Outstanding Contributions to Psychology Award, (2004), and APA Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science (2005) and American Psychological Foundation's Arthur W. Staats Award /Lecture for Unifying Psychology (Coordinated by APA Div. 1), 2009.

Overmier's research spans specialties of learning, memory, stress, psychosomatic disorders, and their biological substrates and is carried out with a variety of species of laboratory animals and with humans. Overmier has authored some 200 refereed research articles, book chapters, and books in his specialties.

Overmier served on the governing Boards of a number of organizations: Psychonomic Society(1983-1988), National Academy of Science's National Committee for Psychology (1991-2002), American Psychological Society (1994-97), American Psychological Association (1999-2004), and Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, and was President of the Midwestern Psychological Association (1988-89), APA Division of Physiological and Comparative Psychology (1990-91), APA Division of Experimental Psychology (1992-93), Pavlovian Society (1996-97), and Society for General Psychology (2003). He was President of International Union of Psychological Science from 2004-2008.

Overmier served as Editor of the journal Learning and Motivation (1973-1976), Associate Editor of American Psychologist (1994-2001) and the International Journal of Psychology (1994-1998).

Occasionally, Overmier publishes with his wife, Judith Ann Overmier, who is a Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Science, University of Oklahoma. Their most recent work is a CD-ROM reference tool, Psychology: IUPsyS Global Resource. They have one daughter, Larisa (Overmier) Somsel, a museum specialist and on-line bookseller.

Link to Curriculum Vitae