Meeting John Bransford

Abstract

John D. Bransford died in 2022. He was an intellectual giant. His seminal work in educational psychology was recognized by Division 15 of the American Psychological Association with their Career Achievement Award in 2001. This paper is an introduction to the man. It traces his intellectual development from cognitive psychology to educational psychology to the learning sciences. It is written as a first-person narrative to echo the perspective he often adopted in his surprisingly accessible papers. This paper also describes the intellectual community he built around himself, one that was remarkably successful in generating novel ideas, supporting collaborative research, and training generations of young researchers who would go on to make their own marks. Finally, it portrays what it was like to work alongside a man who saw just a little further down the road than the rest of us.