Jeff Bostwick

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Jeff Bostwick

Assistant Professor

bostwick@udel.edu

Office location

University of Delaware, 105 The Green, Room 212, Wolf Hall, Newark, DE 19716

Education

Ph.D. – University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY
B.A. – Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA

Biography

Jeff Bostwick, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware. A music lover from an early age, Bostwick initially planned to be a band teacher until, halfway through an undergraduate degree in music education, he received a book (This Is Your Brain on Music, by Daniel Levitin) that introduced him to the world of music cognition. Since then, Dr. Bostwick has devoted his career to teaching cognitive psychology and researching music cognition.

Dr. Bostwick has taught a variety of introductory and advanced undergraduate courses in psychology at schools in New York, Connecticut, Virginia, and Delaware. Collectively he has taught roughly two dozen classes, primarily psychology statistics, cognition, and introduction to psychology. He particularly enjoys the "a-ha!" moments that happen during class and office hours, where a frustration with some topic gives way to a realization and understanding.

As a researcher, Dr. Bostwick's primary areas of interest are in the effects of music on other cognitive processes, and the way music is processed. He conducts basic research on the features of musical stimuli that evoke emotional responses, and on how memories for musical stimuli are created and stored.

In addition to his work at the university level, Dr. Bostwick also routinely teaches for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth program, which consists of teaching two intensive three-week courses on cognitive psychology each summer to academically gifted twelve- to fifteen-year-old students.