Reflections on Working with Henry L. (Roddy) Roediger, III 

In the early Spring of my first year of graduate school, Roddy called me to his office for a meeting. Immediately, alarm bells went off in my head. Although Roddy always made time for his students, he was a busy man – usually people made meetings with him (not the other way

around). I racked my brain for what I could have done wrong but could not think of any pertinent transgressions. I entered his office with trepidation. Roddy started talking about how his mentor, Endel Tulving, was going to give the keynote speech at the annual meeting for Association for Psychological Science (APS) that year. Endel would be talking about the distinction between episodic memory and semantic memory. 

After going on for some time about the topic of the speech, Roddy explained that Endel was planning to ask the audience to imagine that there was a gorilla in the room, and he wanted to have someone in a gorilla suit jump out on stage with him. “What in the world does this have to do with me,” I silently wondered. Soon it was perfectly clear: “Would you like to play the gorilla?” asked Roddy. I must admit that my first thought was that Roddy surely considered me a dope. However, I soon learned what a tremendous opportunity this odd role held. I got to interact with Endel Tulving and countless other thinkers in the vanguard of psychological science. I also got to know the APS staff and later became involved in the APS student caucus. Roddy opened a door for me, and he has done the same thing for countless others. 

In this reflection piece, my goal is to give you some insight into who Roddy Roediger is as a person and what it was like to work with him. When someone retires, it is common and appropriate to focus on cataloging all their accolades, contributions, accomplishments, and achievements. I could extoll Roddy’s impressive scholarship (over 300 publications, many of which have been highly influential), skill at obtaining funding for his research (grants from National Institute of Aging, National Science Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, among others), extensive editorial experience (e.g., editor stints with top journals in our field), outstanding leadership (e.g., President for multiple leading organizations in psychological science), and numerous honors and awards (e.g., Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences). If you want to read in depth about those things, and you should, I will point you to Roddy’s biography on his website. Instead, I want to focus on what makes Roddy such a special person by highlighting three aspects that are central to his extraordinary legacy in our field and beyond: 1) fostering the success of students and colleagues, 2) imparting a passion for psychological science, and 3) enriching the communication of ideas. 

Fostering the Success of Students and Colleagues 

Roddy has a penchant for cultivating relationships with people – it is an activity to which he devotes a huge amount of time because it gives him much happiness in return. When you first meet Roddy, it immediately becomes clear that he is genuinely interested in you as a person. He asks questions, he listens, and he remembers. Roddy cares about the people with whom he has developed relationships, and he takes a vested interest in their success. As I have discovered over the years, Roddy has developed a vast social network (his former students often joke about how the “six degrees of Roddy Roediger” would make a good game). Everywhere I go, I meet people who have interacted with Roddy at some point in their career and feel that they are better for it. I am continually impressed by the time and effort that he devotes to mentoring people outside of his inner circle, even if they are at different institutions or working with other people. Roddy has been hugely successful in his own career, but his active interest in fostering the careers of others sets him apart from his peers.  

Roddy promotes the success of his students and colleagues in many ways. First, he works tirelessly to provide them with new opportunities and recognition for their accomplishments. Second, he provides them with advice on important decisions and solutions to problems. All of Roddy’s former students continue to benefit enormously from his sage counsel; in particular, I value his ability to be candid, yet also remain positive, patient, and encouraging. Third, Roddy serves as an outstanding role model. Roddy has been extremely successful in his career but so have many other psychological scientists. What sets Roddy apart from his peers is the way in which he approaches his roles as an academic, a researcher, a teacher, an administrator, and a mentor. During my time in his lab and ever since, I have watched and learned from Roddy’s dedication, enthusiasm, humility, and grace. Finally, Roddy teaches the craft of mentoring. Much like his other graduate students and postdocs, I learned to mentor by working with undergraduates who were conducting research in the lab. Whereas undergraduates in other labs are often treated like cogs in a machine, Roddy requires his students to teach them how to write, discuss journal articles with them, and teach them how to conduct psychological science. Roddy has firmly impressed upon me that a large part of one’s legacy as a scientist is one’s students. As a result, I have made mentorship a cornerstone of my career. 

Imparting a Passion for Psychological Science 

Roddy’s passion for psychological science is so infectious that it is hard to spend even a small amount of time with him and not come away feeling enthused as well. By sharing his love of psychological science, Roddy frequently succeeds in accomplishing one of the most special feats of mentorship – helping people to discover a passion that sustains them throughout life. Although Roddy’s love for psychological science is widespread, it is not indiscriminate – Roddy believes that science should be done right. The rigorous research training that students receive in the Roediger Lab is well known throughout the psychological science community. Roddy’s dedication to teaching students how to conduct research stems from the value he places on good science. Another reason that Roddy places such an emphasis on research training is that he wants to prepare his students to have successful careers. He knows that a strong foundation in the basics of science – experimental design, statistical analysis, interpretation of findings, etc. – provides a steppingstone to a wide range of possible professions inside and outside academia.  

Although Roddy does much of his research training in one-on-one meetings about projects, he uses lab meetings as an opportunity to broaden students’ perspectives and teach lessons about what constitutes great research. When new students come into the lab, Roddy usually gives them a research project to work on so that they can get started on something while they develop their own research interests. In my experience, this project was a puzzle that needed to be solved – a pair of disparate findings. With some hard work and direction from Roddy, I figured out the answer and ended up with my first publication. I appreciated his faith in my ability to solve the problem – many mentors give their students a set of experiments tied up in a bow. Roddy also keeps an eye on his mentees’ progress in terms of both career planning (e.g., obtaining a degree, building a strong vita) and personal development. One of his strategies for keeping students on track is a biannual lab meeting in which each student provides an update on every one of their projects, then sets goals and priorities for the next 6 months. I remember that this ritual could be very painful, especially when I had to confront unachieved goals; however, it is a tool that I still use today. 

Enriching the Communication of Ideas 

The effective communication of ideas is absolutely critical to the scientific process. We share our ideas and the evidence that supports them with others in our field through talks, articles, posters, and other methods. Given his extensive experience as an editor, reviewer, writer, and speaker, Roddy understands that to be a successful scientist one must be able effectively communicate in both written and oral form. As a result, he dedicates a lot of time to teaching students and colleagues how to convey their ideas to others. Roddy’s mentoring in the communication of ideas extends throughout the psychological science community. As a reviewer, an editor, and a columnist, he has helped to shape his colleague’s thinking and the way that they pursue their research. Clearly, Roddy has had a profound impact on how researchers communicate within the psychological science community. 

The primary way in which Roddy has helped me to better communicate is by teaching me to write. Like many other his students, my experience in learning to write included veritable seas of red ink and countless revisions of manuscripts. I experienced frustration and discouragement along the way, but I learned that writing is process and my ability to communicate substantially improved. We used to joke within the lab about first submitting our manuscripts to the “Journal of Roddy Roediger” – we knew that if Roddy thought a manuscript was good, it would probably fair well when we sent it out for review. Roddy’s combination of constructive feedback and high standards created a dynamic in which I wanted to improve my writing and speaking. 

In conclusion, I hope that this reflection piece has helped you to understand Roddy Roediger as a person, and the immense but often unseen impact that he has had on his mentees, colleagues, and everyone in our field and beyond. I am honored and blessed to have him as a mentor and, like many others, I will endeavor to carry forth his legacy through the values, knowledge, and practices that he shared with us.