James J. Snyder, Wichita State University distinguished professor of clinical psychology emeritus, proved to be an insightful teacher and productive researcher. Over the course of his career, he taught both graduate and undergraduate classes at WSU, generated more than $6 million in external funding and published more than 100 scholarly articles.
As a researcher, he and his research group focused on the development of psychopathology, delving into how aggression, anxiety disorders, delinquency and depression took root in childhood and adolescence. Snyder and his group wanted to learn how families, peers and teachers influence development, so that preventive and clinical intervention methods could be made more effective in providing positive results to real families and children.
Snyder and his fellow researchers were noted for their involvement in classroom and home-visitor consultation with Child Start’s Head Start and Early Head Start programs. In 2014, he received the Children’s Champion Award presented by Child Start.
He also was a member of the Psychosocial Development, Risk and Prevention Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. In 2016, he and a colleague wrote The Oxford Handbook of Coercive Relationship Dynamics, which was described as a “remarkable contribution to both science and society.”
Jim Snyder – family man, researcher, teacher, psychologist, child advocate and gardener – died Sept. 11, 2016
in Wichita.
