CLASS OF 1966

Thomas Russell Scott, Jr.
Tom died on May 15, 2017, following a heart attack five days earlier.

Born in Ridley Park PA, Tom came to Princeton from Interboro High in suburban Philadelphia, where he excelled academically and as a baseball pitcher. He joined Cottage Club, majored in psychology, and set two Princeton pitching records that stood for four decades.

Tom met Wellesley student Bonnie Burton Kime on a 1964 trip with the Chapel Choir. They married in 1967 and would have celebrated their 50th anniversary in June 2017.

After receiving a PhD in biological psychology from Duke, Tom joined the psychology department of the University of Delaware, where he rose to department chairman and associate dean for research and graduate studies. In 2000 he and Bonnie moved to San Diego State, where he served as vice president of research and graduate school dean until his retirement in 2014. He was widely recognized as a pioneer in the neuroscience of taste sensation.

A gifted communicator, for five years Tom broadcast a weekly science commentary on the KPBS program San Diego Science. He was board chairman of Friends of Balboa Park.

Tom is survived by Bonnie, daughters Heather and Heidi, son Ethan, and six grandchildren, to all of whom the Class extends its sincere condolences.

San Diego State University has published this memorial to Tom, and here is the PAW memorial.

 

The photos below show Tom in recent years, with his wife Bonnie at Kyoto Prize Symposium in Japan, and under the umbrella getting ready to leave for the 50th in a FLIX 66 video (L-R: Tom, Dennis Russell, Glenn Goltz, and the late David Kidd). The last three show Tom lecturing, in a 50th Reunion selfie with Larry Owen, and with an unidentified partner.