Bruce, Vicki
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Vicki Bruce was born in 1953 in Essex. She obtained a BA in natural sciences from Cambridge, where she also completed her PhD in psychology in 1977 under the supervision of Baddeley. She spent 14 years at the University of Nottingham before moving to her current post as Professor of Psychology at the University of Stirling in 1992. Her research field is the perception and recognition of faces, and she has published widely on this topic. Her work on face perception and recognition is important because it proposes that the recognition of visual objects is based on specialised 'modules' or brain processes and structures. The model proposes a functional relationship between the recognition of faces using these 'modules' and the perception of facial expressions. She has also been heavily involved with research administration. She is a former member of several committees of the Medical Research Council and of the Economic and Social Research Council and is Chair of the psychology panel for the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. She is also a member of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and of the UK Council for Science and Technology. Vicki Bruce was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1999 and joined the Academy's Council in 2000. She received an OBE for services to psychology in 1997, and was the Centenary President of the British Psychological Society in 2001. Written by: Vicki Bruce