Psychology professor Robert Elliott Johnston dies at 72

Robert Elliott Johnston, professor of psychology, died Dec. 20 at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca after extended treatments for lymphoma. He was 72. "Bob was a wonderful and calm colleague, steadily productive in his research at Cornell for over 40 years, who roamed our hallways as a looming and beneficent presence (he was more than a head taller than most of us). He will be missed," said James Cutting, the Susan Linn Sage Professor and chair of the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. Johnston researched animal behavior and the mechanisms of behavior in a naturalistic or evolutionary context. He studied social behavior, such as scent marking, aggression, sexual behavior, individual recognition and kin recognition, to gain a greater understanding of animal behavior.