Claudia Carello – Interview and reflection

Abstract

In this interview conducted by Agnes Szokolszky in 1997 Claudia Carello, the long-time director of the Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action (CESPA) at the University of Connecticut, recounts her introduction to Ecological Psychology as an undergraduate and how it led to her decision to pursue a Ph.D. at UConn. She vividly depicts the vibrant atmosphere, events, and debates at UConn in the early 1980s from the point of view of a highly engaged graduate student. She gives a historical account of CESPA's founding and how its organizational structure has facilitated ground-breaking research and education in the ecological approach to perception and action. The original interview concludes with her thoughts on the progress of ecological psychology in the 1990s. In her 2021 reflection, Carello highlights the unique social–intellectual traditions that characterize graduate training at CESPA, traditions that continue to be integral to turning out many outstanding ecological scholars and researchers. She identifies some of CESPA's especially important contemporary developments in theory and research, noting some key contributors along the way. The chapter also contains a short biography and a list of ten of Carello's most important publications.