Geoffrey Keppel was Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. During his 47 years at UC Berkeley, Keppel served as dean of social sciences, chair of the Department of Psychology and director of the Institute of Human Learning. His accolades include a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1993 and, at the time of his retirement in 1994, the prestigious Berkeley Citation.
Keppel’s research expanded the understanding of what causes humans to forget. Along with his mentors, UC Berkeley psychologist Leo Postman and Northwestern University psychologist Benton Underwood, Keppel demonstrated that forgetting is the result of interference from a variety of sources, including past memories, various aspects of the current memory, and new memories.