Dr. Paul Minda

Biography

Paul Minda is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Western University. He serves as the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Affairs and is a core member of the Western Center for Brain and Mind, as well as the Western Institute for Neuroscience. Professor Minda holds a bachelor's degree from Hiram College and completed his PhD at the University of Buffalo, where he was a Beckman Fellow at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. His research primarily focuses on how people organize their experiences into categories and how mental structures influence behavior, planning, and decision-making. He has worked on prototype theory and multiple systems theories of categorization, contributing significantly to our understanding of how children, adults, animals, and machines learn and generalize. In addition to his research contributions, Professor Minda is recognized as an accomplished author and award-winning lecturer. He has taught a wide range of topics in cognitive psychology and received several prestigious teaching awards, including the Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2024, the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020, and the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance Teaching Excellence Award in 2023. He is also the author of a best-selling textbook titled Psychology Thinking and a popular non-fiction book called Think.

Research Interests

Experience