Dr. Bert Moore

UT Dallas professor Aage Møller and his late wife, Dr. Margareta Møller, established the chair in November 2009 to support the research and scholarly activities of the faculty member appointed to the professorship.

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“The great community support that UT Dallas continues to receive has had an enormous impact on our school, greatly increasing the quality of our training for students and the significance of our research.”

In memory of Bert Moore
February 28, 1944-October 20, 2015

Moore was dean of the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) for 26 years before he stepped down from the role in 2015.

Moore joined UT Dallas in 1980 as program head of psychology in the then-fledgling School of Human Development. In 1989, he was appointed dean of the school, which changed its name in 2002 to Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
Under Moore’s leadership, enrollment at the school increased from 387 to 2,427. The number of faculty members more than doubled, and the number of degrees offered increased from five to 13. Two of the school’s graduate programs – audiology and speech–language pathology – gained top 12 rankings from U.S. News and World Report.

This growth and prestige have meant significant opportunities for students, and Moore has worked to ensure that they profit from research projects throughout the school. He believes BBS students benefit from a top-flight faculty that combines enthusiasm for research with a dedication to teaching.

Moore’s own research focuses broadly on how emotion impacts cognitive, social and physiological processes. He has long been interested in how emotions affect people’s views of themselves and the world around them.

Among Moore’s best-known projects were the so-called marshmallow studies. These investigations of delayed gratification continue to influence other research.
He has served as associate editor of Motivation and Emotion and has been a member of editorial boards of five other journals in the area of personality and developmental psychology. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society and was named the 2015 Distinguished Psychologist by the Dallas Psychological Association. Moore previously held academic appointments at Wellesley College and the University of California at Santa Barbara and visiting positions at UT Austin and Stanford University.

Moore earned his bachelor’s degree at Southern Methodist University and holds a master’s degree from the University of Illinois. He received his PhD in psychology from Stanford University.