Eric Heinz Lenneberg (1921–1975)

Excerpt

Eric Heinz Lenneberg was born on September 19, 1921 in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he attended school until 1933 [1]. Then, he had to move to Brazil with his family because of the widely spreading Nazi anti-Jewish persecution in Europe. In 1945, Lenneberg moved to the United States: he obtained a B.A. degree in 1949 from the University of Chicago [1, 2] and, six years later, a Ph.D. in Psychology and Linguistics from Harvard University [3]. At the Harvard Medical School, he studied neuroscience as a Russell Sage fellow [1]. He then taught at Harvard University, worked in the Center for Cognitive Studies [3] and carried out research on language development in children at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston as a member of Massachusetts Institute of Technology [1, 2]. Shortly afterwards, he became a member of United States Public Health Service (USPHS), specifically of the Mental Health Service Administration [1]. …