John W. Santrock received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1973. He taught at the University of Charleston and the University of Georgia before joining the Program in Psychology and Human Development at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he currently teaches a number of undergraduate courses and was given the University’s Effective Teaching Award in 2006.

John has been a member of the editorial boards of Child Development and Developmental Psychology. His research on father custody is widely cited and used in expert witness testimony to promote flexibility and alternative considerations in custody disputes.

John also has authored these exceptional McGraw-Hill texts: Children (11^th edition), Adolescence (12^th edition), Life-Span Development (13^th edition), Topical Life-Span Development (5^th edition), and Educational Psychology (5^th edition).

For many years, John was involved in tennis as a player, teaching professional, and coach of professional tennis players. He has been married for more than 35 years to his wife, Mary Jo, who is a realtor. He has two daughters—Tracy, and Jennifer, who is a medical sales specialist at Medtronic. Tracy recently completed the New York City Marathon, and Jennifer was in the top 100 ranked players on the Women’s Professional Tennis Tour. He has one granddaughter, Jordan, age 19, and two grandsons, Alex, age 6, and Luke, age 4. In the last decade, John also has spent time painting expressionist art.