Jonathan Smallwood

Biography

Education

The grandson of Joey Smallwood's cousin, Jonathan "Jonny" Smallwood earned his BA (1996) and PhD (2002) from The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He was a lecturer in psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University (2002–2004) before travelling to the University of British Columbia as a post-doctoral researcher (2004–2006). From 2006 to 2008 he was a lecturer in psychology at the University of Aberdeen, after which Smallwood returned to North America to work with Jonathan Schooler as an assistant project scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 2011 to 2013 he was a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in the Department of Social Neuroscience. In August 2013 he joined the psychology department psychology at the University of York and in August 2018, he was promoted to professor. From July 2020 until his death, he held a professorship at Queen's University at Kingston.

Academic career

Smallwood was a pioneer in the development of experience sampling methods and their integration with cognitive neuroscience methodologies, for example in the study of mind-wandering.