ORI Senior Scientist, Lewis R. Goldberg, Ph.D. passed away peacefully on March 29, 2026.  Dr. Goldberg was an internationally recognized scientist in the field of Personality research and a cherished member of the ORI community for more than six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential psychologists of his generation and a central figure in the development of the “Big Five” model of personality, giving the five-factor framework its enduring structure, language, and influence. Dr. Goldberg and ORI colleagues Sarah Hampson and Grant Edmonds extended a landmark longitudinal study that followed individuals from childhood into older adulthood and generated important knowledge about the long-term stability of personality and its relationship to health and longevity.

Dr. Goldberg was a Senior Scientist at ORI and an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon until his passing. After obtaining an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, he taught for two years at Stanford University before moving to Eugene in 1960. He joined ORI as one of its first scientists in 1960. He was a Fulbright Professor on two occasions, first at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands and later at Istanbul University in Turkey. In addition, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a Fellow-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study.

A past president of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (SMEP) and the Association for Research in Personality (ARP), Dr. Goldberg served on both the Cognition-Emotion-Personality and the Personality-and-Cognition research review committees of the National Institute of Mental Health. He was a Selection Officer for the U.S. Peace Corps, a consultant to the Intelligence Division of the U.S. Secret Service, a member of the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Chair of the APA Task Force on Honesty and Integrity Testing. He has served on the editorial boards of the Annual Review of Psychology and over a dozen psychological journals.

Dr. Goldberg won three lifetime achievement awards: The Jack Block Award for outstanding contributions to personality research from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), the Saul Sells Award for outstanding contributions to multivariate research from the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology, and the Bruno Klopfer Award for outstanding contributions to personality assessment from the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA).  Most recently, he was included in the Heritage Wall of Fame from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and he was elected President of the World Association for Personality Psychology (WAPP).

His mentorship and presence shaped the careers and lives of many colleagues and collaborators here at ORI and around the world. Beyond his remarkable professional legacy, Dr. Goldberg was also known for his intellectual curiosity, the meaningful relationships he built, and the generosity he extended to others. He remained actively engaged in the scientific community at ORI throughout his life and career. He will be profoundly missed.