Dr. Paul C. Quinn

Paul C. Quinn joined the University of Delaware (UD) faculty in 2003 as Professor of Psychology. He earned an Sc.B. in Psychology with Honors and graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University in 1981. He also received a Ph.D. in Psychology from Brown in 1986. Quinn taught previously at the University of Iowa and at Washington & Jefferson College (W&J), and has held visiting positions at the Medical Research Council’s Cognitive Development Unit (UK), the Center for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck College (University of London), and the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. Quinn received the Distinguished Professor Award at W&J in 1995 and was selected as Francis Alison Professor at UD (UD’s highest faculty honor) in 2013. In 2018, Quinn was appointed as Trustees Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

Quinn’s research has focused on how infants form concepts for people, places, and things. He has become especially interested in how infants extract so​cial category information from faces (e.g., gender, race, age), and how early perceptual biases for certain social categories may be related to subsequent social biases. The work has been supported by funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Mental Health. It has resulted in over 230 journal and book chapter publications, along with two coedited books, and has received wide media attention (e.g., CNN​​, BBC Radio, USA Today, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Nature​​). Quinn is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (Divisions 3 and 7), the Association for Psychological Science, and the Psychonomic Society.

Quinn serves as a Rapid Internal Review Editor for Developmental Science (2024-present) and as a member of the editorial board of Infant Behavior & Development (1995-present). He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Developmental Science (2009-2023). Quinn additionally served as Associate Editor for Child Development (2001-2007) and Developmental Science (1998-2009). He further served on the editorial boards of Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (1998-2023), Psychological Science (2002-2020), Child Development Perspectives (2016-2018), Infancy (2007-2008, 2009-2013), Developmental Psychology (1997-2004), and Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (2004-2008), on the editorial advisory board for Child Development Perspectives (2011-2015), and as a regular member of the Cognition and Perception Study Section with the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health (2002-2006).

Quinn has served in various administrative roles within his department at UD, including Director of Graduate Education, Associate Chair, and Interim Chair.